


Kidnapped

by sinistercinnamon



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU where Ben Solo doesn't willingly turn to the dark side, Abduction, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Gets a Hug, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Ben Solo Pain Train, Ben Solo is a Mess, Brainwashing, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Good Parent Han Solo, Han Solo Lives, Height Differences, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Mother-Son Relationship, Panic Attacks, Snoke is not Palpatine (because that's stupid), Trauma, story complete but not technically finished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24811708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistercinnamon/pseuds/sinistercinnamon
Summary: Who is Kylo Ren?Ben Solo, beloved son of Han Solo & Leia Organa, has a happy childhood, if a little lonely. And then one day he goes missing. His family is devastated & searches desperately, but no trace is ever found.Years later, Kylo Ren, a man with no past, serves the First Order loyally. He has never known anything else. And yet, if that's so, why does he wake up with half remembered dreams of places he has never been, & flashes of memories that cannot be his?
Relationships: Ben Solo & Han Solo, Ben Solo/Rose Tico, Kylo Ren/Rose Tico, Leia Organa & Ben Solo, Paige Tico & Rose Tico, Rey & Ben Solo
Comments: 69
Kudos: 111





	1. Loss

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Snoke's ability to manipulate from a distance is limited & he's not willing to play a long game involving slowly grooming a potential apprentice in the hope he might turn (dude's a busy man with a galaxy to take over & he ain't so willing to wait). Instead he kidnaps Ben as a child, then tortures & brainwashes him until he forgets his old life & even his name.
> 
> My usual style is 'inappropriate mix of angst & humour', & if you've been reading my other Star Wars stuff, looked at the tags, & still thought this was gonna be more of the same, then... well I appreciate your confidence in my abilities but no. Characters are gonna be put through the emotional wringer in this one. It's gonna have a happy ending (or about as happy as you can get after going through all this) but the road there ain't gonna be happy happy fun times, ya get me? I can guarantee a happier ending than TROS had, if that helps? (Low bar, I know)
> 
> Fair warning: I know vaguely where I want this to go in terms of Ben's arc, & I have a few chapters written, but a lot of details are fuzzy. ~~For instance there will be relationships of some kind, though what they'll be & whether they'll be romantic or platonic has yet to be decided & I don't wanna tag until I'm sure (the chapters I've written are very Ben-centric & he's not interacting with anyone enough to say for sure).~~ EDIT: This fic will be Roselo.

Han nodded in satisfaction as the last crate was slotted into place.

“Great work, guys. OK, we’ve got an hour before we leave. I think that’s enough time to squeeze in a little R&R if you make it snappy. Have a nap, grab a bite to eat, contemplate whatever terrible life choices brought you here.”

“Sure thing, boss!”

Boss.

There were some days he almost had to pinch himself to check this wasn’t a very elaborate dream. After a life of barely getting by, here he was with a home and a family and people who called him ‘boss’ and didn’t mean it sarcastically. If he saw his life story as the plot of a holodrama he’d roll his eyes at how ridiculously implausible it all was.

“Happy Republic Day!” another man called over his shoulder as he left the hold, and Han winced. To everyone else it was Republic Day, commemorating the day that the New Republic had been founded. To Han, it was something infinitely more important: it was his son’s birthday.

And he wasn’t there.

He had said he would be. Sure, he’d never made an actual _promise_ as such, but still. And he’d given Ben his lucky dice, the ones he never (well, almost never) parted with. That had to carry an even greater weight than a promise.

He kept doing this, and he hated it, even as he found himself wondering if it might be better if he was out of Ben’s life, as he sure as anything didn’t feel like he could be the father he needed. He never seemed to know what to do. And he’d heard the muttered gossip, all the people pointing out how fast Leia had gotten pregnant, how their wedding had been so small and quiet – too small, too quiet, they said - and drawing the conclusion that Ben was a mistake, that it had been a blaster-point wedding. Sure, Ben hadn’t been planned. But it was the happy sort of accident.

He hoped Ben never heard any of that, hoped even more that if he did, he never believed it.

There was no real reason for him to be here. Things were at the stage where the company didn’t need him hovering over every little thing. He could take a back seat now, let others handle things. But a lifetime of having to watch cargo like a hawk made it hard to ease up. And when this job had come in, he’d felt he had to.

Coaxium was both extremely dangerous and extremely valuable – he knew both those things better than anyone - and he’d not felt comfortable leaving it to anyone else, especially what with it being a last minute rush job. The business was still new enough that a big enough screw up could end him, and this was a big thing that could be screwed up in any number of ways. Some of them explosive.

He would make it up to Ben, he decided. This job would be over in a day or two, and whatever came next, he would let someone else handle it, no matter what it was. Some things were more important. He’d take Ben, and they go off on a trip in the Falcon, not just a short hop like they’d taken before either - they’d wander a little, go wherever Ben wanted, just the two of them. He’d let the kid co-pilot her – he definitely knew how to do it, but this would be his first real chance at properly flying the ship.

No idea how he’d get Leia to let Ben skip school for so much as a day, but he’d travel that hyperlane when he got to it. Maybe he’d try to visit some museums, spin it as an educational trip. Kid was into that fancy handwriting stuff, right? Gotta be some exhibition of ancient manuscripts going on somewhere that they could visit (with a few stops for adventures along the way).

He might even sit him down and explain a few things about his family history. Leia was reluctant to tell him anything. It was always later, later, and never quite actually doing it. Well, maybe later should be now. Kid should know.

He reached for the commlink to call home, but it beeped before he could touch it.

⁂

Luke stumbled out of the cave, feeling as if he was stepping from a boat floating on choppy waters onto dry land.

It hadn’t been a Dark Side cave, but that was possibly the reason for the disorientation. Whatever the ancient culture that had once lived here was, they’d used it as a meeting place. Celebrations. Funerals. Discussions. Fights. And something about the rock had absorbed the heightened emotions of centuries of visitors and been affected. Joy, grief, anger, disappointment, relief, all those and more had affected and distorted the rock of the cave, shaped it and seeped into it.

Luke had never attended a carnival – never had much use for them on Tatooine, and after that he’d been too busy with the Rebel Alliance, and now his life was spent trying to restore the Jedi Order to the galaxy, seeking out knowledge and items that the Empire had tried to erase – but he’d heard that they often had rooms of distorted mirrors to confuse and delight people, and he imagined it was like this.

Being inside had been deeply unsettling, but in a strangely fun way, as if the Force itself was playing games with him. Distance, time, directions, even up and down, seemed to lose meaning. Even Lor San Tekka, who had no Force sensitivity whatsoever, seemed affected, staggering out into the sunlight and collapsing onto a rock next to him.

“Well, that was interesting.”

Luke grinned back at his friend. “Good interesting or bad interesting?”

“Hard to say. Probably why the Order did not seem to like it much. I can see how it might exacerbate any confusion or doubt a padawan might feel.”

Luke nodded in agreement. As fun as it was, there were dangers in treating the Force itself as a game, and metaphorically pulling the rug out from someone who was already on shaky ground was not a good idea. He could also feel a lingering sense of disquiet that didn’t seem to be going away even after he had left the cave.

“Well, at least it’s isolated enough that I don’t think we have to worry about anyone just stumbling across it.” He thought of something then, and grimaced. “I’ll probably struggle to make it back to Chandrilla in time for Republic Day like I told Leia I would.”

R2-D2, who had been quietly observing them, beeped at this, his answer startling Luke.

“What do you mean ‘It is Republic Day’. It can’t be. It’s at least another month…”

But, as he thought about it, it wasn’t. It _had_ been another month, and then he’d found a clue that pointed towards the location of what could possibly be a holocron… where he’d found a Sith holocron that was mercifully non-functional but had stumbled onto a hint about a possible Jedi outpost… which was empty but where he’d run into Tekka, who had heard a rumour of…

Oh, it was definitely Republic Day.

He sighed, Leia had asked him to visit. She’d wanted him to give a proper assessment of Ben’s potential, consider taking him on as an apprentice. Luke was unsure. The boy had power and potential certainly, and the few discussion they’d had on the Force, where Luke had taught him a few things, shared some wisdom, given some advice, had gone well enough. Plus, you couldn’t reform the Jedi Order without a padawan or two. But he wasn’t sure Ben had his heart set on being a Jedi, and Luke was reluctant to force matters. Leia was worried there was too much of his grandfather in him, but Luke felt the real issue was there was plenty of his father in him, and when Han didn’t want to do something, he made it everybody’s problem.

It couldn’t hurt to talk to the boy about it though, try to sell him on the wonders of the Force, how important it was to restore the defenders of the Light, etcetera. See how things went. Maybe even delicately raise the issue of who his grandfather was. Not the full Vader reveal, of course, not for a long time yet. But perhaps a few stories of the glory of how Anakin Skywalker had defended the freedom of the galaxy in the Clone Wars.

In fairness, he had only said he might be back _around_ Republic Day, so Leia could hardly complain. And it wouldn’t matter too much - the kid wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

He reached for the commlink on his belt, but the device beeped before he could touch it. Leia. The feeling of unease grew worse.

⁂

Leia hurried as much as she dared. She could not be seen to run, as that would be undignified, and stars forbid she not be prim and proper at all times. But she really wanted to.

She’d done it again.

Every Republic Day, she vowed it would all be about Ben. He would get a proper birthday party, she would spend the whole day with him, they would do something fun as a family.

And every year it was the same. She’d get too swept up in preparations for the celebrations, and be snowed under with work as everyone suddenly remembered that the Senate would be closed for a single day, as it did every year, and all immediately decide that their requests must be handled now, before the Senate closed, as if it would never open again. She wondered how these people handled sunsets. Did they think that a sun was disappearing for good every single time it fell below the horizon?

The idea of organising a party would simply slip through the cracks (it didn’t help that she felt it was something she should handle herself, instead of delegating it to an intern), and by the time she managed to find a moment to do something, everyone had made plans and there was no timeslot during the day where everyone could agree.

Then she’d tell herself it was all for the best, that they could do something spontaneous. There were 26 hours in a Chandrillan day, and they could surely slip away for a couple of them, find an activity at random, even something so simple as a meal in a quiet restaurant, or a walk along the beach. But there was always something. Someone wanted her to supervise this, make a decision on that, stand there and smile for some reporters, greet some dignitaries, something something always something.

And then they’d reach the end of the day, and Ben was too tired to do anything. Even then she could not be allowed to stop to tuck him in and tell him a story. Everyone wanted the great Leia Organa, senator, war hero, ruler of a dead planet. She had fought to bring about the New Republic, so of course she should be part of commemorating it.

It wasn’t as if it was a bad day, or boring - there were plenty of fun things to do for children, exciting entertainments and curiosities, and the grown-ups relaxed the rules just a little, and what kid didn’t love that? But none of it was for him. It was never just his birthday. He was just one of many kids having a party for a concept that he could only vaguely understand, and that seemed an indisputable facet of life because he didn’t recall a time before its existence.

And it was looking out to be the same again.

First Han hadn’t shown up (she expected him to call any moment, full of apologies and excuses and she’d berate him, feeling like a hypocrite as she did so, but telling herself she had the moral high ground as at least she was here, and that must count for _something_ , right?). And then Leia had left him alone. Not really alone, as such. She’d left him in a park, in a kids’ activity area. He was under the supervision of childcare professionals, and there was so much to see and do and he would definitely be having fun. But she wasn’t with him.

She had only meant to leave him there for an hour at most, while she dealt with some tasks that she knew even a child who carefully practiced the dead art of handwriting and could happily look through engine parts for hours would find boring. And then she would collect him and he would not leave her side, and anyone wanting her would just have to deal with that.

But there had been one thing after another, and she’d looked up at the chrono to see that it was now afternoon.

So now she hurried back to the park. Torn between running as fast as she could, not wanting to delay another second, and trying to stay calm, knowing that seeing the unflappable Senator Leia Organa running would cause consternation and risked people stopping her to ask what the emergency was. Instead she moved in an awkward half run.

She had been feeling unsettled all day, for no discernible reason. It was part of why she hadn’t been able to get away earlier, paranoia that there was some disaster imminent and she needed to spot it. But everything had been normal, and now she was sure it was simply guilt.

She arrived at the park, a little out of breath despite her reluctance to hurry, and headed in the direction of the play area.

“Hello there, Teegee,” she called out to a brightly painted protocol droid. “I’ve come to collect Ben.”

B-5TG titled its head slightly, confusion evident despite the lack of facial expression. “I’m sorry, ma’am. But your son is not here.”

Leia was sure her heart had stopped. There must be a mistake. She had misunderstood the droid. Or it had misunderstood her. “What do you mean, he’s not here? I left him here this morning.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. But I have not seen him since…” - a pause as the droid checked its databanks – “09:47 this morning, in your presence. We had assumed he left with you.”

The world seemed to go white.

**__**

**_Hours later…_ **

****  


The police had finally left, and she sat alone. She’d even deactivated the droids, unable to handle the endless suggestions that cups of tea might help.

An array of commlinks were strewn on the table in front of her. Her personal communicator, an official one for the Senate, a few older, obsolete ones dug out of a box, even a few programmed with codes from her Rebel days.

She willed one of them, any of them, to chime.

The only glimmer of hope was a call, some lowlife making demands. They would put Ben on, let her hear his terrified voice, then yank him away and demand an obscene amount of credits.

And she would pay, of course she would. She’d pay anything.

And then she’d hunt the person down, and murder them and anyone who helped them, anyone they ever met, anyone they had so much as nodded to in the street.

But she would pay what they asked.

But the hours slid by with no call, not from the abductors, not from the police to relay a threat or to report that he’d been found safe and well and had simply wandered off and gotten lost.

Nothing.

And in the emptiness and the silence she found something far worse. She reached out with her senses, just as Luke had taught her to do, over and over again, seeking for her son. His life force was as familiar to her as her own, and usually burned so brightly, with those few threads of darkness that Luke had told her not to worry about, that pretty much everyone did.

But there was nothing.

Eventually, as the shadows grew on the wall, she had to admit defeat. She had put off calling Han or Luke, hoping that if she just waited a little longer, she would be able to report happy news, or at least give them some news, some kind of answer. She picked up one of the commlinks and, after a lifetime of giving speeches, had no idea what she was going to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on ages & timelines: I'm thinking Ben is 9 here, mainly because Anakin parallels, but also it's old enough for him to have had some kind of childhood with his family, but young enough to make Snoke's brainwashing easier. That said I have no intention of having him in this situation for 2 decades so there'll be some fudging of timelines, so in this he'll be in his late teens (early 20s at most) when the events of TFA take place.


	2. Preparations

Kylo Ren startled awake at the insistent beeping of his alarm, wrenched from a dream he could barely remember. There was a ship, he thought, but not a sleek First Order craft. Something… rougher? He thought he could recall the feeling of soft, thick fur against his cheek. An animal of some kind?

He shook it off and rose, briskly getting ready, his routine almost automatic. A few stretches to properly wake him up, then some basic training exercises – nothing fancy, just basic lightsaber forms and stances. As always as he worked through moves, his mind tried to linger on the last few disjointed wisps of the dream. What did these dreams mean? He knew that you could have visions through the Force – his master claimed he had many – but he was sure that would be something you’d remember. Dreams could be strange things that didn’t have to make sense, but he somehow had a feeling that this wasn’t some nonsense scenario his brain had thrown together.

And then there were the other dreams, where he woke in a cold sweat, body wracked with echoes of nerves alight with pain, flashes of blood, broken bones, bruises, torn skin, flickering across his vision before mercifully dying away, echoes of calm voices intoning instructions, intense heat and searing cold. Blind terror that almost choked him.

He knew pain well. Snoke punished him often when he failed, sometimes for fairly minor infractions, and he was right to do so, or how else would Kylo learn? And to truly embrace the Dark Side, one had to learn how to harness one’s pain, among other things. Besides all that, he was frequently sent out to fight for the glory of the First Order, which sometimes resulted in injury. He could get up and keep going from horrific wounds, push his body to its limits and beyond, kneel in silence as his master unleashed lightning upon him for his latest failure before walking calmly away once he was dismissed.

But the nightmares were different somehow. Even the snatches that he got, even knowing they were just nightmares and nothing more, they horrified him beyond all reason.

The odd thing was, though, that the strange dreams almost always came after he was punished, while the nightmares often seemed to come when he was doing well, felt in balance. You’d think it’d be the other way around, with the nightmares being triggered by his master administering pain upon his unworthy body.

He shrugged. The human brain was a strange thing. He would understand one day, probably, when he was ready. Master Snoke often said that. Sometimes in an aggrieved tone when Kylo was not progressing fast enough for his liking, but often it was a promise of the rewards to come if he pushed himself ever harder, strove for greater and greater heights.

He avoided talking about any of his dreams though, even with Snoke. It was possible his master could explain, but far more likely he’d be displeased at Kylo running to him for answers as if he was an idiot child, when he should have figured it out for himself. It wasn’t as if he had much to share anyway, fragments he could barely grasp at himself, that he would struggle to describe aloud.

He continued through his routine until he decided he was done, then into the shower, sonic waves hitting his skin, soothing him and washing away the last traces of the dream along with the sweat he’d worked up training. Then a quick shave.

He got dressed for the day, in an outfit that varied barely more than his routine. Black clothing, simple, sturdy and utilitarian, yet dramatic and designed to be intimidating. The long, sweeping robe-like coat and ominous-looking cowl and mask did an excellent job of covering up the gawkier stages of adolescence, and while that was behind him now, some habits stuck around. Snoke had seemed to agree, urging Kylo to wear clothing that masked his appearance as much as possible. It shouldn’t matter – many people in the First Order had grown up within it, just like him (at least, he remembered no other life before this, so he must have always been here), either born from people who had fled the destruction of the Empire, or children recruited from nowhere planets abandoned by the New Republic, desperate souls to whom the First Order had given a place to belong and a good life, and this meant many people had achieved officer rank at much younger ages than they might in militaries that only accepted adults and would not even consider training cadets who were not in their teens at least.

It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did.

He checked over his appearance in the mirror as he ran a comb through his hair. That should have been that, but as often happened, especially after he’d woken up from a dream, he found his fingers twisting strands of hair into a braid. He didn’t know why he kept doing this, or how he knew. The pattern was unusual, different to a standard braid, more complex. Yet somehow his fingers knew how to form the pattern.

Angrily, he pulled the braid out. He didn’t understand why he did this, and he hated not understanding. As if his body, his life, was not his. It wasn’t as if his hair even needed a braid. At a few inches long, it was longer than First Order regulations permitted, but not long enough to really form a proper braid. Though again, his fingers seemed to know how to deal with that better than his brain, expertly weaving in new strands as the braid followed the curve of his scalp, forming a longer braid than it otherwise should have, albeit a slightly scruffy one.

He’d probably read it from someone’s mind. His master had taught him how to do that and expressed delight at how quickly his apprentice had picked it up. Kylo lived for his master’s praise, and it had become almost second nature to him to scan the intentions and surface level thoughts of those nearby, to better practice and hone his ability. You needed to go deeper to get anything really interesting, and doing that got you noticed, but you could still pick up a lot from just skimming the surface. It’s not surprising he knew things without knowing how.

And now onto the last part of his outfit: His helmet. The most constant part of his ensemble. His master was most insistent that his face not be seen by anybody in the First Order aside from him (and selected medical staff, who were all droids), to better enhance the mysterious nature of his apprentice in the eyes of those around him. It has been especially handy during adolescence, the vocoder helping to cover for voice changes.

It was also handy during boring meetings where he didn’t have to pretend to look interested in the latest recommendations of how to save 5 credits on the annual budget for stormtrooper armour.

There would perhaps come a time, the Supreme Leader had told him, when a mask would not be necessary and could be dispensed with. Kylo had guessed this meant when he’d built up a fearsome enough reputation throughout the galaxy that his name and deeds alone brought fear to the hearts of all, with no need for theatrics. He must strive to be worthy of this, which meant not allowing himself to be confused by pathetic dreams and other such distractions.

He lowered it onto his head and flicked the catch to close it, letting the mask settle into place, comforted by the familiarity, and how it kept him nicely separate from everyone. It gave him a feeling of safety, which was a ridiculous thing for a Dark Side apprentice to want, but it did.

Hooking his lightsaber onto his belt, he strode to the door, ready to face the day, when-

Oh! He’d almost forgotten! His lucky charm. He quickly turned back to collect it from the shelf by his bed.

It was stupid really, he was powerful in the Force, tapping into the mighty currents that governed the universe, learning to bend the galaxy to his will, and yet he was attached to some trinket. Just like how some stormtroopers had foolish superstitions and clung to small tokens. He didn’t even know where he’d picked it up, and couldn’t say what was so special about it, beyond it being shiny, and an object that was often associated with luck.

Still, he couldn’t deny that he felt better when he carried it, and there surely was no harm.

Ready at last, he tucked the pair of golden dice into his pocket and turned to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so IDK if I'll end up making it clear in the text what is up with him braiding his hair, so I'll throw it in here: We know that Alderaanians have a tradition of signalling things with braids (eg. Leia's hairstyle in TLJ is a mourning braid to commemorate Han), & my idea is that the royal family has one to subtly signal that they're in danger. And Ben has been taught these traditions as a child & still remembers the 'HELP ME' braid on some level. So he keeps doing this braid over & over, writing HELP ME in his hair but not consciously knowing why because the meaning behind it is buried so deeply in his subconscious & why yes I did have to go cry in a corner after coming up with that one thank you.


	3. Orders

He strode through the corridors of the Finalizer. He liked what he saw. Everywhere people were committed to their tasks, all striving for a better galaxy. It was wonderful to be a part of this, he knew; Snoke reminded him of that frequently. Some truths needed repeating. After all, how else would the Empire have fallen if it wasn’t for those who should have defended it, instead taking it for granted and allowing it to fall into the hands of terrorists? And then those same terrorists had squandered their victory by forming the weak New Republic, which failed the galaxy. While their pampered politicians argued, people suffered.

The First Order would restore security and justice to the galaxy, and Kylo was going to help usher in this glorious new age.

It was important to keep those thoughts in mind, to remind himself of what was important, in order to get through his next task: A meeting. With General Hux. Oh joy.

He really, really, hated Hux. He knew he should not. Supreme Leader Snoke obviously held the man in some regard, or he wouldn’t hold such an exalted position. But any time he had to spend more than a minute in Hux’s presence, he came very close to questioning his master’s otherwise perfect wisdom.

Hux was already there as Kylo walked into the meeting room, busy reading something on his datapad. He caught the title as he passed – a report of a test for hyperspace tracking - and sat down at the other end of the table. He made no attempt at conversation, and Hux did not bother to greet him.

He used to at least try to be civil and build some sort of working relationship with the man. He did not care what Hux’s opinion of him was, but the pair of them were essentially intermediaries between the Supreme Leader and the rest of the First Order, and the troops should view their commanders as a united front, however much of a pretence that might be.

But Hux would have none of it, and so Kylo had given up. If the man wished to be childish, let him. Much of the man’s successes had come about by him taking credit for others’ work, and he relied far too much on technology instead of a true warrior’s instincts. Sooner or later he’d screw up enough for the Supreme Leader to lose confidence in him.

Gradually the room filled up and the awkward silence was replaced by muttered conversation. Captain Phasma arrived last, exactly at the appointed start time – like him she had little patience for these meetings and would much prefer to be given nicely succinct reports detailing who she needed to kill.

Not bothering to acknowledge anyone, she sat down in the empty seat next to him and removed her helmet. Unlike him, she had firmly established her reputation – the stormtrooper recruits practically worshipped her as a goddess with the same ferocity that they feared her – so when not on duty, she could afford to relax a little.

The meeting actually turned out to be less tedious than expected. True, there were the usual budget reports and analysis of supplies. But there was also a _mission_.

Neither he nor Phasma were exactly slumped in their seats, having been thoroughly trained out of slouching, but both of them somehow sat up even straighter.

Some small village on Jakku (a planet he’d never heard of) was harbouring a fugitive and known ally of the Resistance. Their intelligence had reliably informed them that the man, Lor San Tekka, was known to be in possession of data that the Resistance were desperate to get their hands on. The First Order needed to eliminate this man and retrieve the data before it could pass into the terrorists’ hands.

The name Tekka was vaguely familiar. He was sure he’d heard it mentioned before, though he couldn’t say where. Though that was unsurprising – if he was a known terrorist sympathiser, he would’ve probably shown up in a report somewhere. He’d probably heard the man mentioned in a previous meeting while half asleep.

Phasma was to command the stormtroopers, of course, but ultimate command of the force being sent would be Kylo. Instead of giving further details, Hux simply informed him, “The Supreme Leader will tell you more about your duties.”

Kylo gritted his teeth behind his mask. The words themselves were not objectionable – it was not unusual for him to receive specific commands from his master, such as teachings in the Force relevant to the mission, additional instructions not meant for others’ ears, and side missions meant to enhance his training or acquire some Force relic. But the tone this message was conveyed in made it seem like Hux was the one with the sole confidence of the Supreme Leader, relaying a message to some underling who should wait to receive instructions because it was beneath Hux to bother with giving them.

It was testament to Snoke’s teachings that he restrained himself from Force Choking the ginger irritant right there, and he nodded.

⁂

Free at last, Kylo had to restrain himself from actually skipping to his next activity. Sienar-Jaemus were working on an experimental new TIE fighter, the TIE Silencer, and he was the test pilot. Not only that, but it was being built according to his own specifications and tweaked according to his feedback. And while the intention was to bring them into full production (well, sort of, as it required expert handling that even many experienced pilots were not quite up to), this one would be his, and his alone.

Flying alone through the stars, pulling off intricate manoeuvres, dodging obstacles, relying on his own skills and reflexes to see him through… There was a wonderful feeling of freedom there that nothing else could compare to. Not that he felt restricted by his life in the First Order, not at all. But when he was in the cockpit of his own ship, everything else just seemed to fall away.

As much as an honour it was serving his master and learning the power of the Force, he was a little jealous of the TIE pilots. They got to fly all the time. Hopefully with him being assigned his own TIE, he’d get to do more of that. Why give him one otherwise?

And it seemed that day might be here at last. They had just completed the latest round of upgrades and improvements, and assuming they’d all been carried out to his satisfaction, and the fixing of the last set of issues hadn’t caused any new ones, this would be it.

He acknowledged the salutes of the techs and read through the changelog. According to the testing, the previous issues had been resolved, and no new ones had been discovered, though of course the true test would be flying it.

The first thing he did once climbing in was to take out his lucky charm and hold it a moment. He felt like he should hang it somewhere, but the TIE’s interior was stark with no wasted embellishments or convenient hooks. Putting it on the dashboard was a bad idea as in freefall a loose object was a dangerous projectile. So he settled for looking at it for a moment before putting it back in his pocket.

Next, he made sure to confirm that the system’s chrono showed the correct time and triple checked that the comms were working. The star destroyer was due to depart for Jakku in a little over an hour, and he wouldn’t put it past Hux to ‘accidentally’ leave him behind if he lost track of time or failed to respond. The starfighter was fitted with a hyperdrive, so he wouldn’t be stranded, but he would be made to look foolish, and his master would not be sympathetic to an apprentice who was causing disruption to a whole ship and its crew by not being where he should be.

Really he should delay this flight until he had more time, just to be on the safe side and to give him more time to prepare for the mission, but he just couldn’t. He’d looked forward to this. And besides, he was testing important equipment that was meant to ensure the First Order’s victory. Surely he had a duty to carry out this task without delays?

After getting the go-ahead from the control tower, he launched, blasting out of the hangar and into open space. He enjoyed himself, taking the ship to its top speed and pulling off some wild manoeuvres. Just to properly put the ship through its paces, of course, not for frivolity. It was important to be thorough.

He wished he had more time, that he could stay out here forever. But he had to be back at the Finalizer.

Not just to avoid getting left behind, but he was expecting those promised instructions from his master regarding his upcoming mission. He had not been given a time – he served at the Supreme Leader’s whim, and a summons could come at any time he desired – but when it did he must answer immediately, regardless of what he might be doing.

Pushing down his disappointment, he turned the Silencer back to the ship, instead trying to focus on the excitement to come.

⁂

“Ah, my faithful apprentice. You have made great progress in your training, though you still have much more to learn, but now perhaps it is time you begin to take your place as the heir to Darth Vader.”

“That is all down to you and your teachings, master,” he responded, kneeling before the Supreme Leader’s holographic form. He kept his words measured and calm, but such rare praise was exciting, and his curiosity was piqued by that last part. This mission was clearly about more than simply eliminating a terrorist sympathiser and retrieving some data, not with this suggestion that his training was going to be taken up a level.

Kylo knew of Vader, of course. His master mentioned him frequently. The mighty warrior who had served the Empire, only to betray his master, setting in motion the galaxy’s fall into destruction and chaos.

Kylo could not understand doing such a thing. His master was wise. The Supreme Leader cared for him, nurturing him and instructing him in the ways of the Force. Often, that meant pain and hardship, but how else would Kylo learn or progress if he was not being punished for his failures, forced to push himself to ever greater heights? The rare moments of praise were all the more precious for their rarity. Not trifles that were given away freely, giving him a feeling of pride and accomplishment at a sign of his master’s approval.

To betray his master, who had made Kylo Ren all that he was, was unthinkable. He would not fall as Vader had.

“Rise.” Kylo did so, waiting as his master surveyed him for a time. Looking for what, he did not know. Evidently, whatever criteria he was being judged on, he had passed, as the Supreme Leader continued, “You know of Luke Skywalker, do you not?”

Kylo could not quite prevent himself from jerking in surprise, though thankfully his master chose to be lenient, not chastising him for such a lapse.

“I do, master.” He was the so-called hero of the Rebellion, who had persuaded Darth Vader to turn on his master, and then killed him (oh the story he had spun was that Vader had died of his wounds, but this was such an obvious lie he was amazed anyone believed it).

For some reason, he felt like there was more that he should know about this man, something he’d forgotten, but as far as he could recall, that summed up all he had been told of the man, and all he needed to know. Was there some report somewhere that he was meant to have read? He had managed to look up information on Jakku (a desolate wasteland of a planet in the Western Reaches, where the Galactic Civil War had officially ended, the Empire brought to an ignoble defeat, but had otherwise made no impact on history or culture) and Lor San Tekka (an old man who thought he could understand the Force). He hadn’t thought to research anyone or anything else.

He braced himself for the possible - and deserved - punishment for not anticipating his master’s wishes. Of course he should have looked up Luke Skywalker – he was listed as an acquaintance of Tekka! He hadn’t thought, but he should have!

“You are aware that he has fled, gone into hiding?”

This at least he could answer. “I am.”

It was a subject of some discussion within the upper ranks of the First Order. This was, after all, the man who had brought down an Empire, and the only known Jedi in existence. He was a threat to the First Order’s dominance of the galaxy. And he had gone and done them a favour by abandoning those who believed in him, who looked to him to save them from the regime he had helped install. It was hoped that, in his absence, those who looked for a saviour would acquiesce easily to the First Order, with only a little stubborn resistance from criminals and corrupt politicians who revelled in the lax laws of a chaotic galaxy.

This was to the First Order’s gain, everyone had concluded.

“We know where he has gone, of course.”

This was said in a tone that suggested it had been known for some time, and Kylo was unable to stop himself from letting out a startled, “What?”

This time his master was not so lenient. An invisible grip locked around his throat, and he was slammed hard into the floor. His vision began to fade as he struggled to breathe, even knowing it was futile. After what seemed like an hour, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, he was released, and clambered shakily to his feet.

His master continued speaking, as if there had been no interruption. “It was known by many that he was in search of the first Jedi temple. Of course, there is no evidence that he ever found it. But Jedi are predictable fools, and it is just the sort of place where one would go when he fled in disgrace – isolated and full of potential knowledge.”

He paused and looked down at Kylo from projected vantage point of his throne, as if expecting another lapse in his conduct. Was he breathing too loudly? Kylo’s lungs still burned and his breathing sounded almost deafening inside his mask, and he hoped that it wasn’t being magnified by the vocoder. He fought to get himself under control. Weakness would not be tolerated.

His master apparently deemed him sufficient, continuing, “We have a map, obtained by Imperial investigators striving to eradicate the Jedi scourge from the galaxy. But it is only a fragment, too limited to be of any real use. We did not have enough information to locate Skywalker and prevent his return. Until today.”

He smiled, and Kylo’s brain fought the lingering aftereffects of the Force Choking to connect the dots. This Tekka must have the map!

“We believe that a Resistance ally has acquired the map. If it falls into their hands, they could persuade Skywalker to return and spread his poison through the galaxy once more. This cannot be allowed. You must either obtain it yourself or destroy it. Do you understand.”

Kylo bowed his head. “I understand, master.”

“Good,” his master purred. “Do not fail me, apprentice. I put a great deal of faith in you, I would not like to think that it was misplaced.”

The hologram winked out, leaving him alone, in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole the ["pride & accomplishment"](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/) line from Electronic Arts, because it's the exact sort of thing Snoke would say to gaslight his apprentice, & the fact that EA thought it was a great PR response says a lot.


	4. Confusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: Poor bb has a panic attack towards the end of this chapter, including some flashbacks of torture.

Kylo Ren strode down the ramp of his command shuttle onto the surface of Jakku and through the burning village. The terrified villagers had been herded into a group by stormtroopers, but he ignored them, intent on his target.

He knew that he cut an ominous figure – his robes enhancing his height, and the mask and hood hiding his face, and even those not attuned to the Force seemed able to sense the air of menace that hung around him – but the man stared at him with no trace of fear. If it were anyone else, he might be impressed, but the man obviously believed that his faith in the Force would protect him.

Fool. The Force did not protect the weak, no matter how much you hoped and prayed and cried out for it to and the only thing to do was shed that weakness, leave it in the past where it belonged, because clinging to the light had only brought fear and pain and suffering and you must choose to be strong in order to survive, you had to, it was the only way...

He frowned behind his mask. Where had that thought come from?

He did not bother with social niceties or greetings, seeing no value in a pretence of civility. “You know what I’ve come for.”

“What I don’t know is where you came from. The one they call Kylo Ren. Did you ever have another name, I wonder?” No tremor in his voice. He might as well have been discussing the weather.

He had no other name, and never had. For some reason this angered him, and his impatience increased. “The map to Skywalker. We know you found it. And now you’re going to give it to the First Order.”

Tekka ignored the demand. “Did you leave a loving home, a family, to give yourself to Darkness? What sent you down this path?” He paused for a moment. “Or were you always alone? Driven into the embrace of evil by a lack of connection?”

How dare this man mock him for having no pathetic family ties? Why were people so obsessed with family? What was it all about? A wisp of something… a vague feeling of warmth, arose within him, and he pushed it away, confused. Snoke was all the family he needed. What was he even…

Kylo’s eyes narrowed. While it wasn’t unknown for targets to try engaging him in conversation, hoping to appeal to some better nature that they found to their cost he did not have, this was exceptionally inane. He wasn’t trying to build a connection – he was stalling! He had hidden the map somewhere. Likely in the hands of some villager who had escaped into the dunes at the first sign of hostile ships. The longer the old man delayed, the further its carrier would get. Snoke would be furious at his failure.

He snarled, abandoning all pretence of calm. “Tell me where the map is!”

This only got him a mocking smile. “You don’t really think I’d tell you anything, do you?”

“No, you’re right there,” he commented, drawing his lightsaber and igniting it, revelling in the flash of fear on face of this man who had taunted him.

Angry at himself, more than anything for letting the old fool draw him into a conversation about nonsense like family, all the while the prize he’d been sent for was spirited away into the wastes, he slashed with the glowing red blade, cutting the old man down.

A cry of “NO!” split the air, followed by a blaster bolt that he blocked easily, freezing both it and the man in place. He was obviously Resistance, not having bothered dressing to blend in with the locals. Troopers grabbed the man, dragging him over and pushing him down onto his knees.

This exchange went slightly better. The cocky criminal sought to deflect, but he was rattled by what he’d just seen and it was obvious Tekka had given him the map. It’s what he was here for, after all. A search of his person brought up nothing, however. Likely he’d secreted it nearby before doubling back for some futile heroics. Either way, they would have it in their hands within hours. A few sessions at the hands of the First Order’s interrogators and he’d cough up the location in no time. The stormtroopers might even find it themselves without help.

Phasma asked what should be done with the villagers. The answer was obvious – they had been harbouring a terrorist sympathiser, none of them knew the location of the map or had anything else useful to share, and they would only get in the way of the search.

For some reason though, some part of him, some deep corner of his mind, recoiled at this, cringed away from the volley of blaster bolts. An echo of the old man’s words slipped across his thoughts. _Did you leave a loving home, a family, to give yourself to Darkness?_

He pushed it away, angry at himself. Looking around, he saw a stormtrooper standing alone. Somehow Kylo knew he had not fired on the villagers. He should call over Phasma and report the man immediately. Such a dereliction of duty was not to be allowed. But instead he turned away and walked back to his shuttle. Relieved that this showed there was nothing wrong with him.

That strange feeling he’d felt had simply been an echo of the of the trooper’s hesitation, that was all. Everything was fine.

⁂

Everything was not fine. Not at all.

The trooper, designated FN-2187, had freed the prisoner and the pair of them had fled in a stolen TIE fighter. Still, they’d done little damage, and the only issue was wounded pride. The escape ultimately had little effect on the search for the map other than to add a command to apprehend the fugitives.

The droid would have to seek out a population centre if it wanted to contact the Resistance for an extraction. And a nice, shiny and new BB unit would stand out amongst the outdated junk of Jakku like a wookie among bith. The First Order would barely even have to search for it as every local would be eyeing it covetously. There was also evidence suggesting that only FN-2187 had walked away from the crash, and while tracking was difficult in the sandy terrain, the footprints that remained and the dumped armour pieces at least pointed the direction he’d gone in.

(Kylo couldn’t understand what had caused him to abandon the First Order. They had given him a life, a purpose. What kind of person could betray those who had looked after him so?)

And it had seemed like despite the setback, things had been going their way. Troopers following FN-2187’s trail had discovered him with the droid. An aerial attack had been called in to flush them out, but the rogue stormtrooper had managed to make it to a ship with the aid of a local.

Something odd had struck him while hearing the report. A strange thing. Something inside him had leapt to attention at the mention of a Corellian YT model freighter. But why? All he knew were First Order ships, and a few pertinent details about the ships favoured by the Resistance. He was aware that Corellia had a long shipbuilding tradition, but beyond that, had had no reason to pay attention. He’d never even heard of the YT line.

And yet, after he had distractedly waved the lieutenant off, barely noticing him go, he’d pulled the golden dice out of his pocket, not sure why.

And now he stood before the projection of his master, awaiting his judgement. It had been his fault, for failing to report disobedience because of his own distraction.

To his surprise, Hux tried to take responsibility. Kylo had expected the General to point the finger at him and tell Snoke that he had conveniently seemed to know exactly which stormtrooper it had been. Probably he assumed that the Supreme Leader would be displeased at both of them, and that he could possibly win some favour by leaning into his fate. Better to pass up a chance to throw his rival under the gravtrain if it came at too high a cost to him.

The Supreme Leader brushed that aside, and Kylo dared to breathe a little easier. There may well be punishment down the line, and he would probably deserve every bit of it, but for now it seemed his master was focused on fixing this mess.

Although his answer was… to destroy the Republic itself.

That seemed… extreme. But Kylo reminded himself, no. They had failed the galaxy, ignoring the plight of whole systems who had begged the First Order to come and save them from the chaos. They had propped up the Resistance, funding and supplying them while claiming those people had no affiliation.

The First Order had bided its time long enough. It was time.

His master was wise. This was necessary. It was. It had to be. Or why would they be doing it?

Hux left to make preparations, almost dancing out of the room at the prospect of getting to play with his toy, but Kylo remained, waiting for orders or a dismissal. Or for his master to punish his over his failure to obtain the map.

But when he spoke, after a few seconds that seemed to stretch out forever, it was not what he’d expected.

“You have been told the droid is on a freighter?”

“Yes, master.”

“And you are aware of what type of ship it is?”

Was his master aware of the confusion the mention of the ship had provoked in him? Should he admit to it? Or was that a sign of weakness? Perhaps the Supreme Leader was simply testing his ability to absorb information from reports?

“I am, master. The type and model were included in the initial report that I was given. Is there anything more that I need to know?”

That was possibly a bad idea. His master was to be obeyed, not questioned, and if you had to know something, he would tell you. But Kylo was unsettled by this curious turn in the conversation and wanted the axe to fall already.

There was another long silence, and then, “Not for the present, my apprentice.”

It took all of Kylo’s training to restrain himself from a sigh of relief.

“I do hope you will continue to justify the faith I have put in you. Even Darth Vader himself was tricked by honeyed words, and after the work I have put into you, I would hate to see all that effort go to waste.”

Kylo sank to the floor, prostrating himself before his master, who had made him what he was, given him everything. “By the grace of your training, I will not be seduced.”

“Hmmm… We shall see.”

With that, his master disappeared.

⁂

Kylo staggered from the cell as fast as he could, trying to look as if he wasn’t fleeing, and almost certainly failing badly. He stumbled down the a few corridors, barely aware of where he was going, until he collided with a flat surface, which the practical part of his mind, still somehow operating under all this confusion and panic, recognised as a door. He fumbled for the controls, not even caring there might be someone in there.

Thankfully it was another cell, identical to the one he’d just left, but empty.

He slammed his hand onto the button to close the door, and slumped into a corner, breathing heavily, trying to fight off panic. His heart was racing so much he thought it might actually explode. His helmet, normally a comfort to him, suddenly seemed suffocating, his harsh breaths echoing inside the enclosed space, making him feel like he was surrounded by his terror and confusion, and crackling through the vocoder.

His fingers desperately scrabbled for the catch. It took him several attempts, and it felt like it took forever for the thing to open. He wrenched it off, throwing it into a corner, and took several deep breaths, trying desperately to calm himself, drawing upon all the meditative techniques he’d been taught.

Images flashed through his mind, things he’d seen in the girl’s head, and things he’d seen in his own nightmares. There was a man, a complete stranger to him, yet somehow familiar (he heard a voice saying, “I’ll be back soon, kid, I promise.” and felt something being pressed into his hand.). There was a sudden intense pain that felt like all the bones in his body had been shattered, a child’s screams in his ears, and Snoke’s voice telling him to let go of his weakness. Sitting in an unfamiliar cockpit, pushing a button with hands that seemed so small, and seeing stars steaking past the viewport. A blow to his chest and the sound of ribs cracking. Being encircled by large, furry arms as a wookie looked down at him. More screaming, pain, skin being sliced open with a scalpel.

What had that girl done to him? Was this some sort of Force trick? But how, when there was no sense that she’d ever been trained? Thinking of the girl brought up the image of the island he’d seen in her mind. The images were clear and fully realised – she’d thought of them often, and intensely – and triggered no feelings of fear or pain or confusion, and so he seized on them, immersing himself in this place that he’d never been to, and he was sure she never had either.

Gradually, his heart slowed and his frantic gasping became steady breaths. Running a hand down his face, he found that it was wet. He’d been crying?

No, it must be sweat. Crying meant weakness, and he wasn’t weak. He wasn’t.

But now that he was free from the intense panic, he realised the depths of his failure. He had completely bungled the operation on Jakku, failing to achieve his objective and allowing a traitor to go about his business.

He should not have allowed the old man to distract him. He should have interrogated the Resistance pilot right then and there instead of passing him off to the First Order’s interrogators. He should have reported that stormtrooper. He should not have allowed Hux to assert responsibility for the search.

And if that had been all, then those things could be allowable. He’d captured the pilot even despite the old man’s interference. The interrogators were good at their jobs and probably had a few more questions they wanted to ask such a high profile target once they’d got the location of the map from him. A stormtrooper being hesitant in his first battle was hardly a matter to concern himself with, and Phasma had obviously suspected something was off anyway, since she’d had him evaluated and sent him for reconditioning. A tedious search of a vast desert was hardly something he could be expected to do.

But then he’d had a chance to fix everything, only to screw that up too, picking up some random scavenger who happened to have seen the map, instead of the droid who actually had it.

He tried to remind himself that it would have been close to impossible to find the small droid in the large dense woodland, while been blasted by Resistance fighters (and likely by the castle’s patrons, emboldened once they saw the First Order wasn’t getting an easy victory and wanting to cause trouble), but that sounded like an excuse now that it turned out to be harder than he’d thought to get the map from the girl’s mind. And it meant that the map was still out there and likely in the Resistance’s hands by now.

Well, there was nothing for it. His failure would not simply go away if he sat here long enough, and his punishment would only be worse if he waited.

And he could still fix this. All he had to do was get the information from the girl’s mind. He could plead for his master’s guidance, allow his master to show him where he’d gone wrong (perhaps this was normal when trying to read the minds of people who were Force sensitive?) and demonstrate how well he could follow the instruction in whatever techniques were necessary. And once they found out where Luke Skywalker was hiding, he would deal with the man personally and surely be rewarded for it.

Even better, perhaps it would be possible to turn this scavenger girl and recruit her to the First Order? It might be less lonely, having someone else with whom to bear the Supreme Leader’s punishments, to train alongside, to talk to (even if it was just taking about the Force, or TIE fighters, or the state of the food).

Pushing himself back to his feet, he staggered a little, still feeling the after-effects of whatever strange hysteria had gripped him, and had to lean against the wall for a few minutes before he felt able to walk properly. He probably looked a mess. Luckily he had the mask to cover that up.

He put the helmet back on, hiding any signs of his weakness, and carefully, still a little unsteady on his feet, he made his way out of the room.

Whatever had happened, he should forget about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone wondering, no, Tekka doesn't know who Kylo Ren is, or what happened to Ben. He's not trying to provoke any kind of memories or anything, just give time for Poe to escape (which he doesn't do because he's Poe).


	5. Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More flashbacks of torture in this chapter, this time longer & more detailed.

His master had been rightly enraged at his failure, but had spared his worthless life, at least for now. However, he had ordered the complete destruction of the Ileenium system.

Such an extreme solution had unsettled him, though he knew it shouldn’t. His master wanted to make sure that Luke Skywalker did not return. Destroying the system would destroy the map to his location, as well as the Resistance itself. The Resistance were terrorists who sought to prop up a corrupt regime. Wiping them out like this was better for everyone, along with the system that harboured them. His master was wise. This was the right thing to do. It was _necessary_.

But it felt wrong. He couldn’t say why. Perhaps he was still rattled by the things he’d seen in the scavenger girl’s mind, things that were somehow so familiar that they hurt… His master had picked up on this feeling, asking if perhaps he had some compassion for these terrorists, some sympathy for their cause. No! He simply wanted a chance to prove himself!

He had pleaded for another chance, and his master had shown him mercy, intrigued by his assertion that the girl was strong in the Force. Kylo had been elated. He could do this. He could make everything right again. And all this panic and confusion would simply go away.

And then he had walked into her cell, only to find it empty. The door was open, the restraints unfastened, and the guard nowhere to be seen.

⁂

Initial fears of another treasonous stormtrooper had been quickly allayed once the missing guard had been located, aimlessly wandering down a nearby corridor. The man was confused, reporting that he had let her go and even given her his weapon, but couldn’t explain why.

How was she even able to use the Force? He’d been so sure she was untrained. She must have picked a few things out of his own mind while he was reeling from what he saw in hers. Given the things he knew how to do, that wasn’t a good sign. They needed to recapture her before she really began figuring out her abilities.

Realising her only option was to steal a ship, he ordered all hangars put into lockdown. Hux would bitch about it, but let him. Letting her get away was not an option – this was his only way of making up for his failures over the last few days.

And then he felt… something on the edge of his awareness. A presence. It was familiar somehow, yet he could not remember experiencing anything like it before.

He moved over to a nearby console, checking security information, not sure what he was looking for, until he found it. A slight disturbance in the shields, not enough to register as anything of concern, and no breach was registered. Did the Resistance have a craft that could penetrate planetary shields? No, impossible. They did not have anything close to that kind of technology – even the First Order didn’t (he should know, from all the time he spent working with people from Sienar-Jaemus while developing the Silencer) and they had an almost unlimited R&D budget.

So why was he so sure that someone or something had arrived on the planet, when the shields were designed to keep out everything…? Only they weren’t, he suddenly realised. They were designed to keep out anything travelling slower than lightspeed. Because why would they ever need to account for something like that? You would have to be both a madman _and_ an excellent pilot to make a landing at lightspeed.

Checking cams from the nearest parts of the facility to the affected section of the shield, there _did_ appear to be some broken trees atop a ridge in the distance. But the cams were for monitoring the area around the buildings, not the forest, so the angle was poor; even when he zoomed in as much as possible it was impossible to tell if that shape on the ridge was a ship or a pile of rocks.

His hand hovered over the comms button. He should obviously call this in. A security breach? At a time like this? After a stormtrooper who had worked on this very base had defected to the Resistance and a scout ship of theirs had already done a fly-by? Some sort of attack seemed likely. And on top of that it would offer the girl an escape option if she learned she had allies here.

But he hesitated. For reasons he could not explain, he felt he needed to check out the ship alone.

It wasn’t as if he needed a whole team for what couldn’t be more than one ship, whose crew would more than likely be dead or injured from a landing that even the best pilots would struggle to manage…

He would go by himself, he decided. Just to check it out and make sure his suspicions were correct before even considering pulling any troopers off the hunt for the girl. If he felt it was more than he could handle on his own, he could call for backup.

⁂

It didn’t take him long to find the ship. It was perched at the edge of a cliff at the end of a long trail of destruction. What’s more, it was the very same one sighted fleeing Jakku – a Corellian YT-1300f light freighter, with Girodyne SRB42 sublight engines, a class 0.5 Isu-Sim SSP05 hyperdrive, Quadex power core, and CEC AG-2G quad laser cannons that were great for blowing up small asteroids.

He frowned. How did he know all that information? The report had only noted the ship was a Corellian YT model freighter. And the ship didn’t look capable of any of that stuff. It barely looked capable of taking off.

Okay, so he’d found it. This wasn’t just him imagining things; the Resistance _had_ infiltrated the base. He should report this…

He reached into his pocket for his commlink, but when he looked down he found that his hand had brought out the golden dice instead. He looked back up at the battered freighter. It called to him…

It couldn’t hurt to get a closer look... No! He should report what he’d found! He couldn’t sense anyone around, and assuming everyone on board hadn’t been killed in the crash landing, that meant the were Resistance fighters infiltrating the base right now, with plans of sabotage and assassination. He needed to warn people immediately!

Yet somehow he found his feet carrying him toward the ship.

The door was closed and locked, but his fingers knew the code to open it.

Stepping inside, he was enveloped in a strange feeling. Like… warmth. And safety. It felt as if he’d come home. But he’d never had a home, just quarters on various ships, and none of them had been this one. It was somehow both reassuring and terrifying at the same time.

It felt like he was suffocating. He tried to focus on his goal. What was his goal though? Investigating the ship? Yes. That was it. He should look around, see if there were any clues that indicated what the Resistance was planning here. But where to look? The cockpit? Right. The cockpit would be a place to start.

He practically ran up the short corridor leading to the cockpit, feeling as if the walls of the ship were closing in on him. But once he made it there, he only felt worse. This place felt so familiar, yet it was strange and he couldn’t understand what was going on. It felt like he was being torn apart.

Suddenly, the scene shifted. Instead of the snowy landscape of Starkiller Base outside the viewport, there was the bright glow of hyperspace, the pale light of stars reflecting off the control panels. And the angle changed, as if he was viewing the scene from a much lower perspective than usual. Then back to the here and now. Then, blue skies and lush green woodland outside, and now he was in the co-pilot’s chair, which seemed far too big, as a man pushed buttons next to him. Only for that to be replaced by reality once more. Shifting, flickering between different images like a broken holoprojector.

His knees buckled and he had to grip the seat next to him to remain standing.

His eyes rested on a hook. There was nothing special about it. It was just an empty hook. But somehow he knew: This is where the lucky dice belonged.

The man he’d seen in the girl’s mind, but with less grey in his hair, towered over him. “I’ll be back soon, kid. I promise.” He pressed the dice into Kylo’s hand, suddenly so small. “How about you look after these for me until then, huh?”

The dice belonged here. _He_ belonged here. This was home. But it wasn’t home. He had no home. No family. He was nothing, and his master had given him _everything_.

He staggered out of the cockpit, not sure where he was going. The feeling of suffocation was worse now, and he could barely think. His legs collapsed under him, and he slumped to the ground next to a curved couch, leaning on it for support.

Another image (a memory?). Him sitting on this same section of floor while he played with a model ship, swooshing it to and fro through the air, as two people – his parents – sat on the couch behind him, talking.

What was going on? He knew this place. He’d flown on this ship. He had… parents? But how could he have forgotten? Who was he?

Wrenching his helmet off, he stared at the mask he’d worn for almost as long as he could remember – he thought there might have been training before he started wearing it, but nothing was clear. He flung it across the room, not caring where it went, and began scrabbling at his face, pulling at his hair, and let out a wordless howl of pain and anger and confusion. Only, it _wasn’t_ actually wordless. Somehow, he knew that he had just screamed for help in Shyriiwook. How could he know Shyriiwook?

He did need help, but he didn’t even know what help he needed, or who from. Everything he’d ever known had been a lie. What was real? Were some of these visions and memories lies too? How could he know? His fingers, still in his hair, began forming that familiar braid again, and he realised that meant ‘help’ too.

His mother had taught him, he remembered. She had long, long hair that she had let him practice on, while telling him stories about Alderaan.

There was something in his hand. He looked down: The dice. He didn’t remember taking them back out of his pocket. They belonged to his father, who claimed they had always brought him luck. His father, who was the best pilot in the galaxy, and one day Ben would be just like him… Ben. That was his name. His mother’s voice: _“I named you after my only hope.”_

How could he have forgotten? He gripped the dice tightly in his hand, and focused, trying to remember.

Suddenly he wasn’t slumped against the couch anymore, but is hanging from the ceiling of a stark white room by cuffed hands, feet dangling, as a man beats him. He feels bones splintering, his arms being wrenched from their sockets by gravity and his own struggles. Pain. The world fades away… then the sting of a needle, everything coming back into focus, the beating resuming. Snoke’s voice comes from somewhere, _“Weak. Pathetic.”_ Blood spattered the floor. His.

Then, in a bacta tank, bones now fused back together, bruises vanished. Feeling for one beautiful moment that none of that has actually happened… before being dragged from the illusory safety of the tank and strapped to a table. Sudden darkness as a cloth is placed over his face. Water pouring. Panic. Struggle. Praying for help. _“Your parents aren’t coming to save you, foolish child. They don’t even want you. You are mine.”_

A cold room, a hard bunk. Trying to sleep. Hoping that if he does he’ll wake up somewhere else. Pulling out the items that he’d kept hidden in the folds of the thin blanket he’d been bestowed with. A pair of golden dice, and a crystal. His father had got it for him, a fluke find in a junk shop. A rare and precious kyber crystal, all his own. Now it is cracked from him holding onto it so tight while lying here, night after night, crying and pleading for rescue. He has broken it. Look what he has done.

Dangling from his wrists again in a room, this time with arms spread, and his feet able to just about touch the floor. A man cuts away his clothes with a sharp vibroblade. Then he begins to slice skin. A puddle of blood gathers at his feet.

Darkness. Another bacta tank.

He feels the sting of needles, followed by a floaty, relaxed feeling, as the voice of Snoke echoes in his head, whispering that the Dark would make him strong, that he wouldn’t have to deal with such weakness anymore. All he has to do is give in… Give in and it will all be over…

In another room, facing off against an older boy (wearing what he now recognises to be the clothing of a stormtrooper cadet). _“Kill him, or he will kill you.”_ His attacker has an electrified baton and a knife. He has nothing. _“Use the Force, my boy,”_ Snoke almost croons. _“The Dark Side will protect you.”_

He doesn’t want to die.

He is kneeling before Snoke, a leathery finger stroking his face. It is repulsive. It makes his skin crawl.

He leans into it. It is the first affectionate touch that he can remember…

_“Rise, Kylo Ren.”_

And then he was back on the floor of the ship – the Falcon – again. Only he was not alone anymore. He stared up at the figure who was looking at him as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler: Ben gets a hug in the next chapter. He gets all the hugs.


	6. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Han POV chapter!

Things had gone well. Too well. He’d pulled off plenty of crazy stunts in his life and something _always_ went sideways. Yet here he was pulling one of his craziest stunts ever and the closest thing to a hitch was the Resistance being unable to make a dent in the oscillator, and that was really a problem on their end, not his. He shouldn’t complain that a plan was going well, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the galaxy was about to throw him for a loop, just to knock him back again.

(Like when he’d had a life he’d never thought he’d have, with a family, a nice home, legitimate work, and just for a moment he thought a life of struggle was over, that this was it, only for the galaxy to punish him for allowing himself to get complacent.)

First they’d managed to land somewhere close to where they needed to be, but not too close. Then they’d managed to lower the shield despite their inside man not knowing how. Then they’d walked right into Rey. Then the oscillator had only been lightly guarded (probably because the entire base had been scrambled to look for her) and nobody had interrupted them as they’d set the charges. Then they’d got clean away while X-wings hammered the thing.

Now the only thing left to do was to get back onto the Falcon and take off before the planet shook itself apart, but that should be no problem. She’d made a hard landing, but had been through worse, and a few more dings to the undercarriage wouldn’t stop them taking off. Worse case scenario an external sensor or two might’ve been damaged, but nothing critical.

And then Chewie had stopped running, staring for a long moment, before reaching for his bowcaster and continuing much more cautiously. His own night vision wasn’t even close to that of a wookie, so it wasn’t until they were much closer that he saw what had spooked Chewie and reached for his own weapon.

The door was open.

They had definitely not left it like that. First rule of landing on a hostile planet with a cold, snowy climate: close the damn door after you.

Slowly they crept closer, him and Chewie in front, and the other two following. Rey tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the ground. He stopped and looked down. Footsteps. A single line.

He nodded at Rey. Smart kid. So, only one guy, and they were still in there.

They approached more confidently now, knowing they had the advantage. Hopefully, anyway. For all he knew there was a whole squad in there and it had snowed enough to hide them, but one guy had shown up late. Or some sort of Vader 2.0 was in there, ready and waiting to take them all out with a wave of his hand. This Snoke guy had someone like that, didn’t he? He was sure he’d heard it somewhere.

Well, no point waiting around out here. They needed to get off this planet. He ran forward, practically threw himself up the ramp, and quickly pointed his blaster to one side then the other.

There was no-one there.

The others came up behind him, much less dramatically. He was about to signal for Chewie to check the back of the ship while he checked the front (Rey and Finn could choose for themselves who to tag along with), when he heard a whimper. He looked at Chewie, and received a nod in response to his unspoken question. It hadn’t just been his imagination.

Then the sound came again, but more like a sob this time. It was coming from the main hold. What the hell…? The others looked as confused as he was.

Well, screw it. He marched down the corridor, ready to face whoever it was. This was his ship, damnit. And by the sounds of it the planet was tearing itself to pieces and he did not have time to waste sneaking around.

He didn’t know what he expected to find as he came around the curve in the corridor and could see into the main hold. But it wasn’t this.

A young man, tall, pale, and dressed in black, was sprawled on the floor, half leaning against the couch, curled in on himself and sobbing and gasping for breath as shudders wracked his body. He didn’t seem to be aware of them.

He looked so much like Ben, but older. _And he was holding Han’s dice._

Han walked forward, slowly, hardly daring to even breathe, scared he was imagining this, that he might be mistaken.

And then he seemed to come back to himself, jerking suddenly as if waking up from a nightmare, sobs transforming into harsh breaths, as he blinked several times. He turned his head, looking up at Han, and choked out a word that Han hadn’t heard in years.

“Dad.”

He dropped to his knees, dropping his blaster, just staring at his son for long moments. And he had no doubt this was his son. Carefully, he reached out his hand and cupped his son’s face. It seemed like he wanted to flinch away, just for a moment, as if he expected Han to hurt him, but then relaxed and leaned into his father’s touch.

Awkwardly, Han shifted so he was curled up next to him, banging his head on the dejarik table as he went, and not caring. He wrapped an arm around his son and Ben curled into him and began brokenly sobbing.

“Dad, I’m sorry…” He didn’t know what Ben was apologising for. Maybe Ben didn’t either.

He wanted to ask so many questions. What had happened to him? What was he doing here? Had he been held prisoner like Rey, but escaped? Had someone tried to use him for his abilities? Who had hurt him and where could Han find them? But he knew those answers would not be fun for either of them. And he feared what Ben might ask in return. Why had his father not been there when he was taken? Why hadn’t he scoured the galaxy looking for his son? Where had he been, and why had he failed his son?

So, he stayed there, just holding him as he wept, stroking his hair and trying his best to offer comfort he didn’t feel remotely qualified to give.

But then the outside world decided to remind him that it still existed, as the ground shook hard enough that the ship rocked violently and several items fell over. They needed to get out of here, but he couldn’t leave Ben…

Just as well there were two other people capable of flying the ship.

“Chewie, Rey, get us in the air.” The pair of them wasted no time scrambling for the cockpit.

Finn stayed, staring at Ben with an expression that looked anything but happy with this turn of events. He stood staring at the scene before him for long moments before blurting out, “You know who that is, right? That’s Kylo Ren! He’s a monster!” He felt Ben flinch at the words.

“ _That_ is my son. And I’m not leaving him behind. If you don’t like it then you know where the door is.”

Finn stood there for a moment, looking like he was thinking of saying something, before turning and heading into the cockpit. Fine with Han.

“He’s right,” Ben said quietly, voice raw, as if he’d been screaming. “I am a monster.”

“That’s not true.”

“But I hurt people, killed people.”

“Doesn’t make you a monster, kiddo. I’ve met a few of those, and trust be, they didn’t spend any time curled up on the floor crying about being one, so far as I knew.”

“But my mas- Snoke, he- he said-”

“Hey. Look at me.” He shifted a little so he was facing his son, then gently pressed a hand to the side of Ben’s face to get his son to look directly at him. “I mean it. You’re not a monster. You’re not a bad person. Don’t let some crazy old man tell you how to think.”

“Even you?” asked Ben, his mouth twisting slightly in what might almost be considered the beginnings of a smile. Then his eyes widened in shock as he realised what he’d said, and he clapped a hand to his mouth, looking terrified.

Han laughed, ruffling his son’s hair and tightening the embrace. “Nah, I’m different – I actually know what I’m talking about.”

He must have said that loud enough to be heard from the cockpit (at least by a wookie’s excellent hearing), as Chewie loudly disputed this fact.

“Hey!” he shouted back. Then, “Definitely don’t listen to him.”

Ben actually laughed at that, just a little. It was a wonderful sound. Reminded Han of the way it’d felt when he’d flown for the first time. Then he looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten he could laugh.

What had those bastards done to his kid?

Much as he wanted to stay here forever, his joints were beginning to protest him cramming his body under the table. Stiffly, he got to his feet, pulling Ben with him as gently as he could, sitting them both on the couch.

“That’s better. Little more comfortable up here.”

They were in hyperspace by now, and there was no reason for the others to remain in the cockpit. They were giving the pair of them some space.

“Do you-” He hesitated. “Do you want to tell me what happened to you?”

He cringed at how insensitive that sounded. But really, how could you even ask something like that? He didn’t want to know, not really – he knew the answers would be horrifying – but he had to, he _needed_ to know.

Ben looked down at the dice still clutched in his hands as if they held all the answers. Maybe they did; he’d obviously managed to keep them with him this whole time. Then he closed his eyes a moment, took a deep breath, and began talking.

He’d been right. It _was_ horrifying. And it kept getting worse and worse. Every time he thought that it couldn’t, it did. They’d put his son through pretty much every torture imaginable, and plenty that were unimaginable. And each time they ran out of things to do to him, they’d fixed him up, let him heal physically, only to start again. Over and over and over.

Until they broke him.

Snoke had set out to systematically destroy his son as a person. And he’d succeeded.

And through it all, they’d told him that nobody wanted him, which had looked all too plausible once they’d repeated it enough times, with no sign of anybody coming for him.

It wasn’t like he’d been the biggest fan of the First Order – the only reason he’d avoided getting involved with the Resistance was because he couldn’t bring himself to face his wife – but now he absolutely wanted to destroy them.

“Ben-” He swallowed, trying to get the words out. “Ben, I swear, we had no idea where you were. If I’d known, nothing would have stopped me coming for you. I promise you.”

He’d held him even tighter then, not wanting to ever let him go, trying to explain how they’d looked for him. Combed through police reports. Engaged the services of any bounty hunter they knew of with at least some vague moral compass (not a very long list). Chased down every lead. How he’d slowly pulled away from his amazing new life, not wanting to focus on his company anymore because it had kept him away from being there for his son, but feeling stifled and hopeless sitting around in a home full of reminders of what had been lost, gradually falling away and back into his old life, because at least that had always made sense to him.

How Leia had seized on every report of an unidentified child’s body being found, insisting on viewing each one to see if this one would be her child, and each time simultaneously relieved and disappointed that it was not, slowly developing a drinking problem as her political career died away. In the end, the reveal that Vader was her father was simply the final nail in a coffin she’d built for herself.

(Shit, did Ben know about the Vader thing? How were they going to tell him something like that, after everything that had happened to him? How was he going to take it?)

How Luke had become ever more focused on seeking out Jedi lore, hoping to find something that would help, exploring further and further into the outer edges of the galaxy, becoming more and more distant, communicating less and less, until he stopped checking in with them at all.

Ben listened to all this in silence. When Han was done, he quietly said, “My fault.”

 _“No,”_ Chewie said from the doorway (Han didn’t know how long he’d been standing there). _“Snoke’s fault. Your family loves you very much, young one. Your loss hurt them badly. They missed you. We all did.”_

He crouched down and wrapped Ben in a hug. Han tried to pull away slightly, to let Ben receive the hug himself, but he refused to pull away, so Han found himself included in the furry embrace.

Eventually, he pulled away and stood back up. _“It is a horrible feeling to have your child taken from you, and wonderful when you find them again. Welcome home.”_

Han knew he was thinking of how his own family had been torn apart by the Empire, all fearing each other dead for years before eventually being reunited. They should probably stop by Kashyyyk to visit them sometime soon. The long lifespans of wookies meant that being apart for months at a time didn’t feel so long to them, but he had to be feeling homesick right now.

Chewie nudged the pile of black clothing on the floor and growled a query.

“No.” Ben’s voice sounded shaky. “No, I don’t want it.”

That was enough for Han. “Toss it out into space.”

Chewie nodded and picked up the clothes. As he did so, something fell out: a lightsaber. He bent to pick it up and placed it on the table in front of Ben, before checking to see if there was anything else. There was a First Order-issue commlink in one of the pockets. Han gestured to him to keep that – the Resistance might find it useful.

“Should probably take that too,” Han suggested, pointing at the helmet that was perched malevolently on top of a pile of random junk in a crate on the other side of the hold, as if it had been thrown. Chewie retrieved it and took it all off to the trash disposal, where it belonged.

He turned back to Ben to see how he was reacting to this and found him staring at the lightsaber. He didn’t exactly look happy, and Han wondered if he should’ve had that thrown away too. But it seemed like a bad idea to throw away a perfectly good weapon, and he’d heard enough from Luke about how the Jedi considered the things a part of them.

Han wasn’t an expert on lightsabers, but this one looked different. It was black, with exposed wiring and vents on the side.

“I broke it,” Ben mumbled, still fiddling with the dice, looking nervous now, as if he expected Han to be angry with him.

“Broke what? The lightsaber?”

“I broke the crystal you gave me. I held it too tight. The lightsaber doesn’t work properly.”

“Hey, you made a saber with it? That’s great!” He remembered finding the crystal in a box of random stones and beads in a junkshop somewhere in the Mid Rim. He’d been looking for something to make into a necklace for Leia’s birthday, and that crystal was totally unsuitable, yet he’d bought it anyway – some instinct told him this was the right one. He’d almost had a heart attack when he’d taken it to a jeweller have a chain attached to it and the man had told him it was actual kyber.

He’d given it to Ben because it was Force stuff, and hey maybe the kid might want to make his own lightsaber one day when he was older – Luke had one already and Leia’s weapon was her sharp tongue (and occasionally a blaster) – so there wasn’t anyone else who’d find it useful. He had no idea if the kid had any interest in Jedi stuff. But there was no denying he had Force abilities, and Leia sure seemed to want him to train to be a Jedi. Seemed right to give him something like this, just in case.

“But I screwed up. It doesn’t work right.”

Curious, Han picked it up and flicked the button. The blade did turn on, along with two smaller blades coming out of the vents, but it fizzed and flickered strangely. He swished it from side to side a few times, listening to the noise it made, different from the other few lightsabers he’d encountered.

Finn chose that moment to walk in, saw Han waving the lightsaber, and promptly walked out again. He turned it off and put it back on the table.

“See? It’s not meant to do that. And that’s after I completely rebuilt the handle and added the crossguard to vent the excess energy and prevent it completely overloading and blowing my hand off.” He slumped. “I’m sorry. You gave me that so I could have my own kyber crystal, and I completely screwed it up.”

“Screwed up? Are you kidding me? You just told me you rebuilt something you’d never made before, to account for a problem you’d never encountered before. That’s some pretty good engineering right there, kiddo.”

“But the crystal…”

“Can you fix it?” He knew that you had to do some kind of… Force stuff to them to use them in lightsabers, and he was sure he’d overheard some conversation between Luke and some scholar or other about how the Sith had a tradition of taking crystals from Jedi and doing something-or-other to them. So you could obviously change them in some way. Maybe you could use the Force to just fix something like that?

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Han stroked his son’s hair. “Well, I’m sure you can fix it. You were always great at fixing things, and it looks to me like you still are.”

“But what if it’s impossible?”

“Well you won’t know until you try, will ya? If anyone can do it, you can.”

Besides, even if he couldn’t, there was that other one somewhere. The one Luke had lost on Bespin and Maz had managed to get her hands on. Finn had had it last, he remembered. He’d ask him for it later; even if Ben didn’t want it, Leia would probably consider it a family heirloom and want it kept safe.

Just then the alarm beeped to notify them they were coming out of lightspeed.

He still didn’t want to leave Ben, but maybe he didn’t have to. He grinned at his son. “Hey, wanna help me land the ship?”

Ben’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Sure.”

The kid practically bounced to his feet, obviously excited, and though Han was happy to see him smiling, it hurt a little that getting to land the Falcon seemed like such a treat; if those monsters hadn’t stolen him, this would be a routine part of his life.

And standing next to each other led to the realisation of how tall Ben had gotten. Han had missed out on him growing up.

Rey was in the cockpit, checking a readout on one of the screens, but she quickly made herself scarce. He hoped she was just really good at reading the room and letting them have some space, and not simply avoiding Ben as Finn was.

Before sitting down, Ben hung the dice back up on their hook. He’d hated seeing that hook empty, knowing why the dice weren’t there, but still, Ben deserved to hold onto them, and they obviously brought him comfort.

“It’s okay, you know. You can keep them.”

Ben shook his head. “They’re yours, and they belong here.”

He reached out and grabbed his son’s hand. “Hey, maybe they belong here, but so do you, okay?”

Ben nodded, looking like he was going to cry. Han let him have a moment, taking the opportunity to run some quick diagnostics on the landing gear. Chewie had probably done so already, but it never hurt to be sure.

He saw Ben looking over the array of controls with a frown of concentration on his face. “They let you fly anything while they had you?”

It would be an extra cruelty on top of all the other shit they’d done to him if they hadn’t allowed the poor kid to fly.

He grinned, proudly. “A little. I got to fly my own TIE fighter. A new model. The TIE Silencer. Capable of speeds of 155 megalight per hour, 1,850kph in atmospheric flight, with laser cannons and missile launchers, and equipped with stealth gear to foil all but the most sophisticated sensors and tracking tech.”

“Huh, not sure I like the sound of the First Order having squadrons full of those,” he muttered, flicking switches to initiate the necessary procedures for entry to atmo without really looking at them, keeping his attention where it really needed to be: on his son.

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s still in the experimental stage, and requires expert handling. I was the only one out of the test pilots who could fly it and not die.”

“Really?” Han grinned proudly. He should probably be horrified that they’d thrown his son into the test program for a highly dangerous starfighter, but really, _of course_ he’d be able to fly it no problem.

Ben sighed in regret. “They only just properly finished the final prototype though. It was supposed to be all mine, and I hardly got to fly it.”

“I’m sure your mother will give you an X-wing if you ask.”

“Are you sure she’ll even want anything to do with me?” Ben slumped in his seat a little. “I was working for the people she’s fighting against.”

“Not because you chose to. Besides, if the Rebellion had refused to accept people who’d worked for the Empire then it would’ve been made up of maybe 5 people.”

He didn’t look convinced, and Han wished he was better at this. He was great at talking people round (whatever Chewie said), but not when it involved things like feelings. “Look, whatever you did or didn’t do, and why you did or didn’t do it, you’re here now. That’s what matters. If you really believe you have some kind of debt to work off – which you don’t – then helping the Resistance stop the people who did this to you seems like a good way of doing that.”

Ben nodded slowly, looking thoughtful.

“You don’t have to though,” he added. “We can go anywhere you want. Do anything you want. Nobody will blame you for wanting to stay away from this whole mess.”

“No.” He took a deep breath, and smiled, hesitantly. “No. I want to. I’ll help.”

“Great.” He grinned back. “C’mon, kid, let’s land this thing and see your mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW I am super unlikely to have them stopping by to visit Kashyyyk in this story (they'll be way too busy) but Chewie totally would be reminded of being separated from & later reunited with his own son here, & the ST era stuff sure as hell forgets he has a family, so they deserve a mention.
> 
> I also want to make it clear (because I haven't had a good excuse to insert this information into the fic yet) that Ben is wearing the Good Boy Sweater™.
> 
> Next chapter he's actually gonna start interacting with people, so I'll actually be able to pin down what relationships might be happening in this story, whether romantic or platonic or none at all aside from the obvious relationship with his parents. Finally.


	7. Talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo! I have finally settled on the main pairing for this fic. I was undecided for a while, because poor Ben is not in a good state & I didn't want to promise any relationships only to get to a point where he began interacting with people & decide that he wasn't in the right headspace for romance or even friendship. (I suppose I could've waited to start posting until I'd made up my mind but fuck that lol)
> 
> I can now reveal that the main pairing for this story is... *drumroll* Roselo!
> 
> If you've never considered this pairing before & are backing away in confusion, I urge you to look at [this photo](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c6378e86ba90a5f3b85474ce986953f9/tumblr_inline_pa51a9J8p81rif0k9_500.jpg) of Kelly & Adam standing together & consider: That height difference. Also throw in their differing personalities (adorkable fierce ray of sunshine vs angsty dramatic disaster), & their nerdiness, & how can you not ship them?
> 
> If you were expecting Reylo from this based on my other SW stuff, then I'm sorry? Him & Rey are going to be friends at the very least, so I hope that makes up for it.

“General, the Falcon just landed.”

She thanked the tech before turning back to finish what she was saying to Connix. “Make sure that priority is given to rations and medical supplies when loading cargo. Weapons are important but they’re of no good if you’re too sick or hungry to use them. And tell Dameron I want to see him and the rest of Black Squadron as soon as they’ve finished checking over their fighters.” She nodded to let the lieutenant know she was dismissed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I suppose I’d better go and congratulate my husband on pulling off yet another piece of impossible derring-do.”

People hurried around her as she walked through the base, refuelling and repairing ships, checking supplies, and loading equipment. The evacuation seemed to be proceeding well, but there was still so much to do. She wished she’d focused more on seeking out somewhere to use as a backup base, but finding and equipping this one had been a struggle, and they were stretched so thin. And with the destruction of the Hosnian system, there’d be no more help from the New Republic, scant though it had been.

It was possible they were wrong and their base hadn’t been located, that the analysis was wrong, that the weapon was being charged for an attack on some other system, that they were worrying for nothing. But it was better safe than sorry. They could always return to an abandoned base, but they wouldn’t be able to escape one under attack.

The Falcon had only just landed, but already people were piling up supplies ready to be loaded onboard as soon as Han or Chewie gave the go-ahead. She knew she was taking it for granted that he would stay, but Han could never walk away from trouble.

This time might be different though. “ _I know every time you look at me, you’re reminded of him.”_ And she knew he thought the same when he looked at her. They’d both failed their son and neither liked to be further reminded of something they already knew all too well.

Finn was already standing outside the ship, talking to a slim girl in utilitarian beige clothing who was looking warily around at the base. This must be Rey. So they’d managed to find her – good. It had worried Leia that they might not manage to, and she’d die in the destruction of the base. It wasn’t as if they could reasonably hold off on an attack on a weapon that could kill billions, for just one person, but it had still been a source of guilt, and stars knew she had enough of that to deal with.

Chewie stepped out, and seemed about to head over to join the two of them, before spotting her and running over to envelop her in a hug, which surprised her. It wasn’t as if hugging was unusual behaviour for him, but it seemed a little more enthusiastic than she’d expect for someone coming back from a dangerous-but-not-exceptionally-so-by-their-usual-standards mission, who had seen her only hours before. And it didn’t seem like the relieved embrace of someone who had narrowly escaped death (she’d received a few of those in her time). It was a hug of congratulations, not relief or solidarity or comfort.

He smiled down at her. _“I’m so happy for you!”_

“Chewie, what-”

And then he moved aside, allowing her to see the Falcon, where Han was coming down the ramp. But there was someone else with him, Tall, pale, and dressed in black. He looked so much like- Oh.

No, it couldn’t be… So scared of what she might find, of the possibility that she would be wrong yet again, she reached out with the Force… and felt the familiar presence of her son.

She gave a broken cry, and would have collapsed if Chewie hadn’t caught her. People nearby turned to look at her in concern, but she ignored them. Nothing else mattered but this.

Her son was here. He was alive.

“Ben!” She ran towards him, but stopped at the last moment, frozen right in front of him, still struggling to believe he was really here, right in front of her, that he wouldn’t simply vanish if she attempted to hold him. How was he here? A chill ran through her. The only place he could have been was on Starkiller Base. They’d had him. The First Order had had her son this whole time and she hadn’t known. She was in command of an organisation dedicated to standing against them and exposing their crimes to the galaxy, and she hadn’t known.

Was this why he looked scared of her? Did he think she’d abandoned him to his fate?

Slowly, hesitantly, she reached a hand up (he was so tall – her little boy had grown up…) and gently stroked his cheek. He froze for a long, horrible moment, then leaned into the touch, closing his eyes, as a tear rolled down his face.

That was all it took, and she threw herself on him, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing into his chest.

In the back of her mind, she wondered what people would think of this display. Most of the galaxy thought she was crazy, and she was pretty sure most of the Resistance’s recruits believed this too but had simply decided they’d prefer her craziness over the First Order. This wouldn’t help her reputation at all.

But then she felt her son’s arms wrap tentatively around her. Fuck her reputation.

She was torn between staying like that forever and wanting to look at him again. Eventually the latter won out and she pulled away, letting her arms fall until her hands grasped his.

“Ben,” she said again, blinking back more tears. And then, not feeling it was remotely adequate but not sure what else to say, “Welcome home.”

⁂

She was so small. He remembered his parents both towering over him, but now he could look his father in the eye, and his mother only came up to his chest.

He’d been so worried that she wouldn’t accept him, and the loud sob she’d let out on first seeing him had seemed to confirm this. And then she’d raised her hand, and he’d thought for a moment that she meant to strike him.

But she had simply brushed a hand against his cheek, staring at him with awe and happiness. He closed his eyes, unable to look at the raw emotion on her face, and found himself being wrapped in an embrace so fierce that it was almost scary. Hesitantly, not used to receiving or displaying affection, he returned the gesture. All the fears that she would reject him melted away, as he allowed himself to enjoy his mother’s love.

Eventually she stepped away to look up at him, her eyes full of tears. “Welcome home.”

This place was obviously not home, but he understood what she meant. That he belonged here. (He wasn’t sure he did.) She stood there, looking as if there was so much else she wanted to say. He knew she was thinking of how to ask him what had happened to him, and he shrank from telling her all that. It had been painful, telling his father everything, trying to be calm, do his best to pretend it had all happened to somebody else. He didn’t know if he could do that a second time.

His father must have had some idea what he was thinking, as he put a hand on his wife’s shoulder, “We should talk.” And then to Ben, “You’ll be okay on your own for a bit, won’t you? We won’t be far, and Chewie’ll be right here.”

He didn’t look like he wanted to leave his son, which helped a little, even as part of him reacted with fear at the idea of being left alone.

Ben nodded, not wanting to keep them from anything. He’d just arrived; he shouldn’t go around causing any problems. He’d surely caused the Resistance enough problems already as Snoke’s apprentice. Besides, he wasn’t a child – he shouldn’t need supervision.

He sat on one of the crates that were being piled up next to the Falcon, ready to be loaded – the Resistance had clearly realised the First Order had discovered their location, and were evacuating.

The scavenger – Rey, he supposed he should call her – hovered close by but didn’t seem too sure about going near him. Well, they hadn’t exactly got off on the right foot. He should apologise for taking her prisoner and interrogating her. But could you apologise for something like that?

She talked with the former stormtrooper – whose name he thought might be Finn, from what he’d picked up from her mind – who seemed even less happy with him being here. Not surprising. He’d stood apart from everyone in the First Order because of his Force abilities and association with the Supreme Leader, and his past and identity had been a mystery. Rumours about him had been rife amongst the stormtroopers and lower ranking officers, each one wilder than the last as those telling the stories attempted to one-up each other – that he ate babies and drank blood, had fangs and claws, that he could kill someone just by looking at them…

Not the sort of person you want to find yourself sharing a ship with, especially not when you thought yourself free of all that was associated with life in the First Order.

He wondered if he should take the time right now to talk, explain things. But then the ex-trooper spotted someone, waving enthusiastically and shouting to get their attention, before running over, gesturing for Rey to follow, which she did. Leaning to one side to peer around a cluster of people, he saw it was that pilot. Speaking of people who had reason to not want hm around…

Chewie, who’d been talking to a martigrade carrying a bag of tools called out to ask him if he minded if Chewie just went to check something for a minute.

He nodded and waved him away, trying to look relaxed about it, not wanting to let on how much the idea of being left alone upset him. It felt like he was being abandoned, which was stupid – he was a grown adult and the wookie had better things to do than babysit him.

Nobody paid him any attention, all busy with their various tasks, which just made him feel even lonelier. Did he really belong here? Could he ever?

Nearby, a girl in brown overalls was struggling to move a heavy cart piled with boxes of equipment. She was tiny, but doing a pretty impressive job of pushing it along, with an even more impressive selection of curses thrown in, but she could only do so much, and eventually she slumped against the handle, admitting defeat – at least temporarily. He wondered if he should help. That’s what he was here to do right? Help the Resistance? But he probably wouldn’t be welcome…

Just then, she turned and noticed him, and her face lit up. “Uh, hey? Excuse me?”

He looked around, not sure if she was talking to him – she was looking right at him, but someone being pleased to see him was an unusual experience for him.

“Yes, you. Big tall strong-looking guy. Gimme a hand, will you? Um, please?”

Well, he couldn’t really say no if somebody asked. He stood and walked over to grab the handle. She pointed at a ship parked a few spaces away from the Falcon, and together they pushed the cart toward it. He could have easily managed by himself, especially if he’d used the Force, but he thought that might be insulting. And he probably should draw attention to himself by using his Force abilities.

The crew of the ship took over once they’d got the cart to the right place, and they paused a moment, her to catch her breath, him because he wasn’t sure what to do now. ‘Kylo Ren’ would simply stalk off without a parting word. Then again, ‘Kylo Ren’ wouldn’t have helped someone in the first place, and would’ve Force Choked her for daring to ask.

She grinned at him. “Thanks for the help. Ugh, just my luck to pick the broken one. Normally it’d be no problem to fix it, but there isn’t any time.”

He nodded, not being able to think of a better response, and tried to smile, wanting to look friendly, but not being entirely sure how to do that.

She clapped a hand to her face suddenly, looking mortified. “Oh, shit. I wasn’t interrupting you there was I? You didn’t seem to be doing anything, but now that I think about it you were probably just taking a quick break. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry!”

Ben tried to explain it was fine, but his voice came out as a harsh croak, his mouth dry from all the talking he’d done.

“Wow, you sound parched. Must have needed that rest. I’m sorry, really. Look, there’s a water station over here.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him along and he let her, amused by this tiny woman dragging him around like he was nothing. Besides, he really was thirsty.

She poured him some water and he swigged it gratefully while she sipped hers, examining him with a worryingly contemplative expression. Was she finally realising that he didn’t belong here? It was going to happen eventually, but he’d been enjoying simply being able to talk to someone.

“So, you’re a pilot, right?”

The question surprised him. “I am? I mean, yes, I am.” He supposed he was. Sort of. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask him what he’d flown.

“Ha! I knew it. You’ve got that pilot-y look about you.”

“’Pilot-y look’?” He found himself smiling a little, without having to try.

“Yeah, like you’re always itching to be up in the sky.” He really did smile then. He almost wanted to laugh. Part of that was possibly relief. But it was also just nice to be noticed like that. He supposed he did always want to be up in the sky.

“Although…” She pursed her lips and frowned.

Although what? A spike of worry stabbed through him. Had she figured out who he was somehow? Was she about to expose him? He was going to have a heart attack. He’d only just met her and this woman was going to be the death of him. He tried desperately to look casual. But how did you even do that? ‘Casual’ wasn’t a concept that existed in the First Order.

Then she grinned mischievously.

“Although look at you.” She reached up and poked him in the chest, at her face level. “You’re huge. How do you even fit in an X-wing?”

He laughed to cover up the fact that he couldn’t legitimately answer that and didn’t know how to respond. It actually came out sounding natural.

He took a long drink of water as an excuse to not say anything for a moment, while he tried to come up with a way to change the subject, or at least steer it into a general discussion of ships rather than specific details on flying X-wings, which he knew nothing about.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before though. Where’ve you been hiding?”

He tried to think of a good response for that – should he explain? lie? give a vague answer? run away and hide in one of the Falcon’s smuggling compartments and never come out? – and the confusion caused him to choke on the water. He coughed, gasped for breath…

And suddenly he is lying on that table with a cloth over his face, struggling in his restraints as he drowns without really drowning…

There is a voice calling from somewhere, and someone is shaking him. He opens his eyes…

To find the girl standing over him, looking concerned. “Woah woah woah! It’s okay. You’re okay. I think you’re okay? Shit, of course he’s not okay. What are you even saying, Rose?”

He struggled to sit upright – he must have fallen, as he was now sprawled on the ground next to the water station. He shook his head, which was a mistake as it made him feel dizzy, and he wasn’t sure what he was trying to say – that he hadn’t really fallen? that nothing was wrong? that she shouldn’t concern herself with him? Only that last part was true.

“I’m fine,” he managed to say. “Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologise.” She knelt down beside him, and both of them leaned against the wall. “You’ve been through a lot, huh?”

He nodded. At least that wasn’t a lie.

She reached out and grasped his shoulder. “We’re gonna stop them.”

He couldn’t keep on nodding in response to everything, but was he supposed to say? He’d never bothered to acquire conversation skills – nobody had wanted to talk to Kylo Ren. He settled for reaffirming the sentiment. “We are.”

“That’s the spirit!” She patted his shoulder. “A lot of people here have suffered at their hands, but we’re not going to let them beat us!”

They sat there a moment, watching everyone rushing by, before she sighed and pushed herself back to her feet with a bitten off groan. “C’mon. We’d better get back to work.”

She reached out a hand to help him to his feet, and he just stared at it for a moment.

 _We_. _Us_. She’d accepted him as one of them so easily. What would she say if she knew the truth?

“Um, if you’re able to?” she added, looking worried. “I can call a medic over if you need one…”

She began looking around her, and he got to his feet quickly, desperate to avoid making a scene or appearing weak.

“No, no. It’s fine. I’m fine. Really.” He smiled, to show how fine he was. She gave him a sceptical glance but didn’t argue. He was pretty sure this was more down to not wanting to pressure him rather than his acting ability.

“Well, okay. If you say so. Uh, look. Is there anything you need a hand with? Since you helped me. Fair’s fair.”

“I’m, uh, awaiting orders.”

“Ah, okay. No problem.” Once again, he was unable to think of anything to say, and there was an awkward pause. She rubbed her neck awkwardly. “Well, I guess I’d better- Uh, I suppose I’ll see you around…”

He cast a glance back in the direction of the Falcon, where he’d been sitting. He was used to being alone, and his parents had told him to stay put, and this girl was inevitably going to run away in horror once she realised who he really was. He should nod and make his excuses and go back to sitting on a crate waiting for his parents to finish discussing him and figuring out how to solve the problem that he’d created by showing up. Sitting there in full view of everyone as they wondered who this stranger was who was doing nothing while everyone else was busy…

And it was nice talking to someone who didn’t treat him like he was broken, even after he had fallen apart in front of her. He was broken. But that wasn’t the point. It was nice to have someone treating him like a normal person, whatever ‘normal’ meant…

“Um, I could help you? While I’m waiting?” He cringed slightly at how uncertain he sounded, but she beamed at him. It felt nice to make someone feel that happy.

“Really? You’re sure you want to help me out?”

He nodded. “Sure. Er, so what are you up to?” Wait, did that sound too rude? Overly familiar? “That is, what needs doing?”

She thought a moment, then winced. “There’s far too much that needs doing and not enough time to do most of it. But priority one is probably that.”

She pointed at a nearby shuttle. “The report says it’s just a minor wiring issue. Shouldn’t take too long to fix, and it’s accessible by an exterior hatch so I won’t even have to crawl around inside looking for- Agh!”

“What?”

“The maintenance platform is gone! Damnit, it was right here!” She stomped up to the shuttle and peered around as if the platform was still close by, but there was no sign. He watched her stare dejectedly up at the panel she’d need access to. It was way out of her reach. He didn’t like seeing her disappointed. She’d been so nice to him. He’d do the repair himself, if she explained the problem, but it was out of his reach too. Though, not by much.

That gave him an idea.

“What about me?”

She turned to look at him. “You want to go looking for it?”

“No. I mean, it’s an idea, but someone else is probably using it anyway. I was thinking if you sat on my shoulders, then you’d be able to reach.”

She looked at him, then back at the panel, then back at him. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

Maybe. Maybe not. He felt like a stranger to himself, and his own reactions were a mystery to him. How would he know without trying? Besides, he wanted to help and he didn’t have any better ideas. She looked like she wanted to argue but didn’t want to call attention to his collapse just a few minutes earlier, so after a moment she simply shrugged grabbing some tools and shoving them into her pockets. “Okay, whenever you’re ready?”

He crouched down and let her clamber up onto his shoulders, then stood up. He was right; she could reach the panel like this.

Having weird pressure on his shoulders and something loosely gripping the sides of his head did make him slightly uncomfortable. Neither were anything like anything that he could recall happening to him – something pressing onto his shoulders was nothing like having his arms wrenched upwards, there was nothing covering his face or suffocating him, no blows raining down upon him, no pain – but carried enough echoes that he did not want to dwell on for fear of having a flashback. At the same time though, it didn’t feel bad. Just strange, and he was disoriented enough that his brain did not want any more strangeness.

“You sure you’re okay down there?”

“Fine.”

A distraction, that’s what he needed. Conversation. Right, how do you make conversation with someone?

She’d already mentioned her name, and he didn’t know how to introduce himself. He knew what she did as an occupation. Maybe he should give her a compliment, but what? Telling her she was nice just seemed patronising. Should he tell her she was pretty? Or was that demeaning? Compliment her skills? Again, patronising – he obviously hadn’t known her long enough to get much of a sense of her strengths and abilities. What else was there…? Think… Ooh!

“So where are you from?”

It was only once the words were out of his mouth that he realised this was a potential minefield of a question.

“I’m from Hays Minor, in the Otomok system.”

“I think I’ve heard of that…” he said, before the implications of that occurred to him. Oh. Oh, that was not a good sign, was it?

“Really?” She looked down at him a moment in surprise, before going back to her work. Or at least looking back in the direction of the cluster of circuits and wiring she was supposed to be working on. “Well, then you’ll know there wasn’t much to it. A mining planet. Very small, and very cold. But the sky was amazing, and to my family it was home. Then the First Order came.”

She kept working as she spoke, but it was obviously an upsetting subject. He felt like he should tell her to stop, but he didn’t want to interrupt.

“They took everything. Stripped the planet of ore, stole children. We couldn’t even see the sky anymore. My sister and I, we did what we could, but it wasn’t enough, so we left to join the Resistance, to make a real difference. But our parents, they stayed behind…”

She stopped a moment, wiping a sleeve across her eyes, before continuing.

“Sorry,” he said. It didn’t feel like an adequate response.

She reached down and patted his arm, before resuming her work with renewed vigour, as if she hoped she was fixing more than the ship. “Not your fault, and at least me and my sister got out. We’ve still got each other. That’s something.”

She didn’t see his wince. It wasn’t as if he’d actually been there, but still. It was kind of his fault. He’d been part of the First Order. She would hate him if she knew.

“So what about you? What Force-forsaken corner of the galaxy are you from?”

His mind went blank for a moment. He scrambled for an answer. “Um, I was born on Chandrila.”

“Oh really? That’s supposed to be really nice!”

“I guess. I don’t- I don’t remember too well.”

She gave him a curious look at that, but to his relief didn’t question it, instead changing the subject.

“So, you were at Starkiller Base right? That must’ve been exciting?”

“Yeah…” Exciting, that was a word for it.

She obviously picked up something from his tone, because she abandoned that line of conversation. There were a few moments of silence as she continued working. He hoped he hadn’t upset her. Looking around, hoping for some sort of inspiration for a new line of conversation, he noticed Chewie watching him; the wookie gave him a thumbs up. What was that about?

“Okay, almost done.” She screwed a circuit board back into place, reattached some wires, then swung the panel closed, screwing it shut. “Done!”

He crouched down a little and she sprang off. She grinned up at him. “Well, that was kind of fun.”

There was hair hanging in her face and he had the sudden urge to brush it away.

Then the grin gave way to a small frown. “Hold on, I don’t even know your name. I’m Rose.”

“I’m-”

Just then, “Ben? BEN! Where are you?!”

His mother. She sounded terrified.

He stepped around the side of the shuttle to see her standing by the Falcon, looking around desperately. When she saw him, she gave a relieved cry and ran towards him, grabbing him in a relieved hug.

He froze, not sure how to react, until she pulled away.

“Ben! Where were you? I was worried.”

“I’m sorry. I was helping.” He waved a hand to indicate the ship, as well as Rose, who’d followed him to see what the fuss was about. He felt as if he was arguing. Why was he arguing? He’d been told to stay by the Falcon, and he hadn’t. He should have obeyed without question.

His mother made a visible effort to calm herself, and smiled, though it still looked a little forced. His father came up next to her and put an arm around her reassuringly. “See? I told you. He’s making friends already.”

Leia looked as if she wanted to argue. Was she just upset at him not doing as he was told? Or was she worried he’d be a bad influence on her fighters? Maybe both?

Instead though, she gave another smile, this one looking less forced, but he still sensed some tension in the air. “That’s great, Ben. But we need you in the command centre right now, okay? You can talk to your friend later.”

Without waiting for a response, she grabbed his arm in a surprisingly firm grip and pulled him after her, leaving no room for refusal. He gave a sudden, panicked thought to pulling free, which only served to prove what a monster he was; she was his mother, and here he was resisting her commands.

He managed to turn slightly to look at Rose, because it was probably rude to not say anything. She looked confused, and a little wary. She’d probably realised he was trouble. So much for meeting people and making friends.

“Um, sorry. See you later?”

She nodded, still looking confused, but didn’t say anything.

Well, he’d tried. But all he’d done was upset his mother and alienate the one person who’d been friendly to him. Maybe Snoke was right – he was useless.

⁂

Rose could only stand there, bewildered, as the man – Ben – was dragged away by General Organa. She tried to muster up a response to his words, but she was so bewildered. What was going on? She felt like she’d done something wrong. Had she screwed up in asking for his help? He hadn’t seemed to mind. But then he had seemed kind of awkward (not that she could talk here…), and General Organa had really freaked out there. So maybe he was simply being polite?

And then Han Solo ( _the_ Han Solo) had given her a look as Ben had been dragged off, staring between the pair of them and raising an eyebrow. What was that about? And then he was joined by the wookie she’d seen talking with Fossil (this must be Chewbacca), who growled something to him as they walked away, gesturing behind him.

_C’mon, Rose. You’re reading way too much into this. These people are legends. They wouldn’t concern themselves with you that much. You’re just maintenance. Your sister is the hero._

As if summoned, Paige bounded up with a grin on her face. “Soooo, spill!”

“Spill what?”

“Oh come on. I saw you flirting with Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome.”

Rose blushed furiously. “I wasn’t flirting!”

“Oh really? Did you, or did you not, have your legs wrapped around his head?”

She blushed even harder. “He was helping me to fix the ship!”

“Uh huh?” Her sister laughed at her embarrassment, though not maliciously. She was always encouraging Rose to talk more with people, speak up in meetings, put herself forward, and she was clearly delighted that it seemed as if Rose was finally taking her advice.

She groaned. She was never going to hear the end of it now.

“Hmm… well what about you two sharing a drink?”

Why couldn’t she stop blushing? It didn’t mean anything.

“I just-” She was about to explain, but then remembered Ben’s panic attack. Perhaps she shouldn’t mention any details? “I was just thirsty, that’s all.”

Paige knew her well enough to spot that she was lying, but it felt wrong to use someone’s trauma as a means of diffusing gossip, even though her sister would never tell, so better to let her think that.

She at least dialled back the teasing. “Well, what’s his name? I don’t think I’ve seen him around before.” She frowned in concentration. “Is he a new recruit?”

“He’s Ben Solo. General Organa’s son,” said someone nearby. A few pilots and techs had gathered around while they’d been talking, attracted by the commotion. The man who’d spoken was a pilot, though she couldn’t recall his name.

“Wait, but… I thought he was dead?” She’d seen several true crime holodramas about the case. Even though there was no body, and his parents had desperately wanted to believe their son was still alive, the galaxy had long since reached the consensus that the kid was dead.

Did they have another son she hadn’t known about?

The man shook his head, looking delighted to be able to share this news with an audience. “Nope, not dead. Turns out the First Order had him all along!”

This was met with horrified reactions all round as people contemplated the implications of that – that this meant he’d endured captivity and the First Order’s notorious ‘hospitality’ for a decade. But for Rose it was even more intense. The whole time she thought she was just being nice to him, she was rubbing his face in his trauma. She’d said that being on Starkiller Base must have been exciting. And assuming he was a pilot was really insensitive to someone who had probably not seen the outside of a cell in years. She’d badgered him into doing work when he probably had simply been enjoying the sunlight.

Oh, she was such an idiot. He must think she was some kind of monster.

This was exactly why she didn’t talk to people.

“So they had him locked up this whole time?” Paige asked, horrified.

“Oh no. It gets better. They tortured and brainwashed him and made him one of them. That guy,” he waved in the direction that Ben and his parents had gone in, while pausing dramatically, “Is Kylo Ren.”

That revelation was met with gasps, but also dismissiveness and protests. “Oh, come on!” sneered someone.

“No! It’s true!” protested the pilot, hotly. “I heard it from Dameron, who heard it from that Finn guy. That is totally Kylo Ren.”

“Was Kylo Ren,” said someone. Everyone turned to stare at her and Rose realised it was her. Why had she opened her mouth? Well, too late now.

“Was, not is.” She swallowed. “Whatever they did to him, whatever they made him into, he’s not that anymore. I talked to him, okay, and he was really nice. We have two people with us now who have walked away from the First Order despite all the conditioning they must have been through. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? It means the First Order doesn’t have as much control as they think they do. It means there are more people who would leave if they had the chance.”

She was sure she was just babbling nonsense, but when she plucked up the courage to look around, she saw people nodding, or looking thoughtful.

Just then Fossil stomped up. “What’s going on here? We don’t have time for standing around chatting. Come on. Back to whatever you were doing. If you ran out of things to do, go bug your immediate superior to find out what jobs need doing.”

“Good job on defending your boyfriend,” Paige teased as they walked away towards where the bombers were parked.

Rose groaned. She was right; she never was going to hear the end of it.

“Pae-Pae, stop! He was just helping me with a few things!”

Her sister laughed. “Alright, alright. I’ll stop, I promise. It’s just nice to see you talking to someone instead of hiding away all the time. And it seemed as if he liked you, at least from where I was standing.”

Rose was about to explain that, if anything, he was just being polite, especially as she must have upset and offended him on his first day of freedom in years and he would definitely never want to speak to her again. But then Fossil called after them.

“Hold up a moment, Tico. Got new orders for you.”

They turned to face the commander, Paige stepping forward a little to receive her instructions as Rose fought to hide her worry. New orders for bomber crews meant there was an attack plan of some kind, and that meant danger for her sister. “Sure, what’s up, commander?”

She shook her large head. “Not you; your sister.”

Rose blinked in surprise and confusion. “Me?”

“Yes, you. You’ve been reassigned to the Falcon.”

“I’ve been assigned to the _what_?”

“The Millennium Falcon. You may have heard of it?” She wasn’t sure if that was meant as sarcasm or a genuine question.

“Yes, I- But… Why?”

The woman shrugged. “I have no idea. All I know is you were requested by Captain Solo himself. It’s supposedly in a constant state of disrepair so I’m sure you’ll be quite busy.”

She could only nod her acknowledgement, and Fossil gave a curt wave and strode off in the direction of the starfighters to go berate pilots for something or other.

“I knew it!” Paige sang. “He liiiiiiikes yooooouuu!”

Rose couldn’t come up with a response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Yeah, Leia is kinda treating Ben like a kid here. She hasn't quite accepted that her baby has grown up.
> 
> \- BTW [this tool](http://www.mrinitialman.com/OddsEnds/Sizes/sizes.html) is fantastic for figuring out height comparisons between characters.
> 
> \- Next chapter is in an interesting state as it's partially written, but I can't decide who should be travelling on the same ship as Ben, so I'm trying out two different versions to see what works best. I was going to wait until I'd figured out which option to go with before posting this chapter, but I am definitely going to disappear into a _Ghost of Tsushima_ -shaped hole on Friday, & I want to put something out before then.


	8. Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, sorry. I'm afraid my motivation for anything Star Wars has died. I go into more detail in the author's note on [Kylo Ren, (Accidental) Resistance Hero](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15944585/chapters/65310337), but the tl;dr is that I was coasting along on pure spite in the wake of the disaster that was TROS, & that ran out & I can no longer muster up any enthusiasm.
> 
> There wasn't much I could do about that fic, beyond beating random snippets I'd managed to write into some form of coherence, since it was nowhere close to finished & had an actual detailed plot & I was barely out of the setup, so I had to just tag is as discontinued & leave it as it was.
> 
> But this story is less epic & the plot was always gonna be more vague - basically just 'follow an alternate version of canon events until I reach a good point to end things on', so I just chose to pick a point to end it on much earlier than I should. I had an actual chapter mostly written, so I finished it off & attempted to give it something of an open ending.
> 
> I know, I only just finalised the main pairing of the damn story, but it really was not happening (just trying to edit this chapter took me most of the day). So here you go, & sorry once again.

Ben stood behind his mother, feeling horribly out of place amongst the people gathered around the central console. He didn’t belong here. This meeting was just to quickly debrief key Resistance personnel present for the attack on Starkiller Base, and also report on the evacuation efforts.

(He _had_ technically been present at the base and _had_ helped in the evacuation. But he doubted this counted. And since his mother had steered him to this spot – close to her, but not at the forefront of the meeting – it didn’t seem like she was intending to call on him.)

At least his dad didn’t look like he wanted to be here any more than Ben did. He hovered at the back too, and he was certain it wasn’t simply because he thought his son needed supervision. Though that was probably part of it. His mother’s reaction made it clear that he obviously couldn't be trusted to be left alone.

So he stood by and watched holograms depicting data from the attack and listened as Dameron gave a brief summary of the attack (Which was pretty much just ‘We shot at the thing but it didn’t work, then someone blew a hole from inside and that gave us an opening, so we blew it up.’), then his dad (‘We found someone with the proper authorisation and she kindly agreed to lower the shields after we waved some blasters in her face. We ran into Rey, who’d escaped on her own. Then we set some explosives.’).

He saw Rey – who was standing off to one side behind Dameron and Finn, looking like she wanted to be there even less than he did – tense, obviously expecting to be asked for her input, before letting out a relieved breath as Leia called on Statura, who brought up a diagram showing the planet’s destruction so that everyone could confirm that yes, the planet was completely destroyed.

The general looked down at a datapad. “It looks as if the evacuation is going well. No problems to report?”

A man in a technician’s uniform responded. “We’ve had to abandon two speeders because they have maintenance issues that can’t be fixed in the time we have.” He glanced at the readout showing the estimated time they had before the First Order could muster a response after a huge shock like losing a superweapon. “There’s also no way we’ll get all tools and equipment loaded.”

“That’s fine. Just do what you can. I’d like to see us out of here within an hour. If our friends show up early, Dameron-” The pilot nodded and grinned. “-will provide a distraction while the last few ships take off. The bombers will be held in reserve in case that’s necessary, but hopefully it won’t be. The one advantage to our numbers being so small is we can easily slip out, and once we’re in hyperspace, they’ve lost us.”

“Um…” he said.

He was sure it had been quiet, but his mother turned at the sound. “I have a bad feeling about this ‘um’?” she commented, wryly. Then, softer, “What is it, Ben?”

He tried to shrink in on himself, wishing he could disappear, but for all the impossible things he could do using the Force, that was beyond him. “It’s just that the other day, I saw Hux reading a report about the results of a test for hyperspace tracking.”

There was immediate uproar as everyone began arguing.

“Hyperspace tracking is impossible!” sneered one woman. “People have been working on it for decades with no success.”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” someone else replied. “You’ve got a problem that hundreds of people have been working on, many of them brilliant minds, all testing and innovating and putting together theories and building on previous work. It was inevitable somebody would make a breakthrough at some point.”

“It can’t be done! Unless there’s a major problem with the ship’s emissions, there’s no way to track a vessel once it’s gone to lightspeed.”

“Last week I’d have said there was no way to destroy a whole system at once, yet that just happened.”

“Hey, hey!” shouted Dameron, and people paused their shouting to stare at him. “Finn, buddy. You got anything here?”

Finn shook his head. “Sorry. They don’t tell the troopers much of anything. I only know as much as I do about Starkiller because I’d been stationed there. If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t even know it existed.”

The pilot turned to Ben. “What did this report say?”

“I don’t know. I just saw the title.”

“So the First Order tested something to do with tracking. Doesn’t mean they cracked it.”

He was right. Ben was being ridiculous, freaking out over the title of a report. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was trouble coming.

“I- well. Look, all I know is he was smiling.”

“You didn’t ask him about it?”

“No. I hate talking to him.”

This got a few smirks and amused snorts, before everyone went back to arguing. “So, basically we don’t actually know if they’ve cracked the problem or not…”

Leia leaned forward, not saying anything, but the movement drew everyone’s attention, and the group fell silent. It was a few more seconds before she said anything, but everybody waited on her decision.

“We cannot take a chance on this,” she said, staring around the table. “If there is even the possibility that they’re remotely close to cracking this, we can’t afford to ignore it. I would rather assume the worst only to later feel like an idiot, then brush this off as an impossibility and not get a ‘later’ at all.” She straightened. “We are leaving now. Everyone get to your assigned shuttles, immediately. Feel free to pick up anything you can carry on the way – especially if it’s data storage of any kind, as I’d rather not leave an intelligence goldmine for them – but anything else is getting left behind.”

She paused and gave another look around, to check for dissent, but nobody seemed to be objecting – either they accepted her words, or didn’t see the point in arguing. Mostly everyone looked like they were trying to think of any last minute items to pack.

She continued. “It would also be best if the fleet scatters. I will issue co-ordinates for a meeting point to the commanders of each ship, but how they get there is up to them. Understood?”

The was nodding and a chorus of agreement.

“Dismissed, and may the Force be with us.”

Everyone departed, hurrying for the exits (some pausing by terminals on their way out, some picking items as they went), but he just stood there, not knowing where to go. Rey and Finn both hesitated too – apparently they hadn’t been assigned a ship yet either. Dameron, looking back when he realised they weren’t with him, gestured for them to follow him; Ben caught him saying something about showing them who to ask about assignments. Should he go with them?

His father clapped a hand to his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. “Looks like it’s right back to the Falcon. Come on, kid.”

There was a small sound from his mother, and when he looked at her, he found her looking faintly shocked, as if this was somehow unexpected.

Han frowned. “What? You got a better place for him? Because to hell with that – I ain’t letting him out of my sight.”

“But I wanted him to stay with me.”

“So come with us then.”

From her expression, she obviously wanted to. “I can’t. I have to be on the Raddus.”

Han shook his head in frustration. “Well I sure as hell ain’t going to be letting anyone else pilot my ship, not when I only just got her back. And I think it’s best Ben is somewhere familiar to him.”

She was angry now, and Ben shrank away. “My son has finally come back to me, and I won’t be separated from him again!”

They were fighting, and it was his fault.

“Well, it looks like one of us has to be,” his father growled, before visibly collecting himself and continuing in a more conciliatory tone. “Look, you’re going to see him soon enough when we get to wherever it is we’re going.”

“If you would excuse my suggestion,” said C-3PO, clanking up to the squabbling couple. “But perhaps the correct thing would be to ask Master Ben about which ship he wishes to travel on?”

“That might be the first good idea you’ve ever had,” muttered his father, before turning to face him.

“Ben,” his mother asked gently. “Which ship do you want to go on? Whichever one you choose will be alright, I promise.”

He didn’t want to have to choose. Despite her words, he knew there would be a wrong choice. Whoever he didn’t go with would be upset. He wanted to go with both of them, but at the same time he didn’t want to go with either, just so he wouldn’t have to decide (which proved what a monster he was, that he wanted to reject his loving parents). He wanted to spend some time with his mother, who so far had been too busy with the Resistance. But his father had found him and saved him instead of throwing him back into the snow where he probably deserved to have stayed. And he was right – the Falcon did feel like home.

Hesitantly, he spoke. “I want to go on the Falcon. Sorry. Thank you.”

The disappointment in his mother’s eyes hurt more than the tortures he’d been put through.

⁂

Ben fiddled awkwardly with the beacon attached to his wrist. His mother might be grudgingly willing to let him out of her sight, but she wanted to know where he was. His fidgeting wasn’t down to being uncomfortable with the tracking. It was just that in his efforts to reassure his mother that he didn’t find this invasive, he seemed to have made things worse by explaining to her that he was fine with being tracked, as Snoke had done the same.

The crates that had been piled by the Falcon had by now been loaded aboard, and Chewie was waiting for them.

“We good to go?”

_“The ship is ready. We’re just waiting on the girl.”_

Rey? Ben wondered. Then he heard a voice calling, “Wait for me!” and he turned to see Rose running up carrying a heavy-looking bag.

His dad saw his surprised look and grinned. “Hey, c’mon. You made a friend. That’s great. I doubt you’ve had one of those in a while, so you should get to enjoy it.”

Rose stopped in front of them, gasping for breath. “Sorry I’m late! They just told me out of nowhere that my assignment had changed, and I had to say goodbye to my sister, and then I thought I should grab some tools and equipment because someone told me this ship is always falling apart-”

She froze, realising what she’d just said, and who she’d just said it to. “I mean- I’m sorry-”

Han waved this off. “Relax. People have said way worse about her. And you can never have too many tools. Just get on board.”

“We got anyone else coming with us?” asked Han.

_“No. Everyone is here.”_

Ben hesitated in the corridor, torn. He wanted to stay with his dad (especially since he’d upset his mother by choosing him over her). But they surely had no real need for another person in the cockpit, so he would only be sitting around feeling useless. And he shouldn’t need his dad around. He was too old for that.

But he dreaded having to sit in the hold with a group of strangers, all of them probably fully aware that he’d been part of the First Order (for all he knew he might have killed friends of theirs). He knew Rose of course, but he dreaded spending time with her even more – she’d been so nice to him, and he’d liked talking to her, having someone treat him as if he was Ben Solo, dashing pilot, rather than Kylo Ren, monster. But if she didn’t already know the truth, she soon would, and she would feel deceived.

Han seemed to notice his confusion, patting him on the shoulder and gently pushing him towards the hold. “It’s okay. Chewie and me, we got this. Gonna have to make a bunch of different jumps to muddle any possible trail. You make sure your friend is settled in with the others.”

He nodded, feeling like he was being sent away, even though that made no sense; his dad was right to say there was no point to him being in the cockpit.

When he entered the hold with Rose, instead of the strangers he expected, he found the familiar faces of Finn and Rey, who both nodded at him, but didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure if that was anything personal though. Rey perched on the chair by the console, closest to the door, and gave the impression of being ready to move at a moment’s notice. He wondered if after being so used to the wide open spaces of Jakku, where everyone she’d encountered had been a potential rival looking to take her salvage, she was uncomfortable crammed into a small space with other people. Or possibly the Falcon reminded her too much of the derelict wrecks she’d scavenged and she expected it to fall apart at any moment.

Finn was seated at the dejarik table, not looking too happy. He didn’t seem to be directing any annoyed looks at Ben though, so probably he was just disappointed that he hadn’t been assigned to the same ship as Poe.

Rose was still friendly, smiling at him as he showed her where she could stow her toolbag. He gestured to her to sit down first, finding himself adding a slight bow, vague memories of the manners his mother had attempted to instil in him trying to assert themselves, to which she responded with a bob that was probably meant as a curtsey.

She obviously didn’t know yet. Who he was. What he’d done. Should he tell her?

She gave him a slightly puzzled look when he didn’t sit down immediately, and he hastily did so, not wanting to appear insulting.

Awkward silence.

He supposed this wasn’t a good combination of people to ensure a steady flow of conversation. A scavenger who was used to spending long days and nights alone, a stormtrooper who was used to the threat of reconditioning if he brought up the wrong topic within hearing of the wrong person. And him. Rose seemed willing to talk to people, if he was any indication, but this might be beyond her.

Should he say something? What should he say? How were you supposed to make conversation? Nobody made small talk with Kylo Ren, and conversations stopped when he walked into a room.

Casting around for something to talk about, hoping some random object would somehow provide inspiration, he noticed something he’d missed when focusing on the people present.

There were now two lightsabers on the table.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking up the unfamiliar silver hilt. It was sleek and shiny and only made his look even more like junk in comparison.

It was Rey who spoke up. “That’s Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber.”

He frowned, confused. This wasn’t Luke’s. His memory might not be the most reliable thing, but he definitely remembered his uncle’s lightsaber. “This isn’t his.”

Rey added, more hesitantly, “Maz did say that it was his father’s first…?”

“His father’s?” Now Ben was really confused. Uncle Luke had a father? Well, obviously he must have. But Luke had been raised by his uncle, and his sister had been adopted. Nobody had said anything about them having a Jedi for a father.

And this was definitely the weapon of a Jedi; his own seemed deeply inadequate in comparison.

“Yeah,” Finn leaned forward. “You know. Anakin Skywalker. _Darth Vader_.”

Ben froze, the lightsaber falling back onto the table. No, that couldn’t be right. If Darth Vader had been his uncle’s father, then that meant he was his mother’s too. Which meant he was Ben’s grandfather. That couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

But as he looked around, he saw everyone was staring at him with worried looks, as if they expected him to explode at any moment, nobody glaring or rolling their eyes at Finn. And now he remembered things from his childhood. The occasional concerned look from his mother, a worried glance here or there from his father. An overheard conversation between his mother and uncle: “You should train him. I don’t want any trouble.” And there were Snoke’s remarks about him being an heir to Vader; he hadn’t just meant metaphorically, had he?

His grandfather was a monster. No wonder he was too. Snoke had probably seen that – that was why he was taken. And his parents must have seen it, if his mother had wanted him sent away.

Hands grabbed his shoulders and he felt himself being gently turned. “Hey,” a voice said, softly. He didn’t move, couldn’t. Then, in a firmer tone, “Hey, look at me. Ben, please look at me.”

He raised his head and found himself looking into Rose’s worried face. “My grandfather was a monster,” he told her. “No wonder I am too.”

She grabbed his hands and held them tightly. “Ben, no. You’re not him. I’m an engineer, not a biologist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how genetics work.”

“But I was Kylo Ren.”

“So? Only because they made you, right?”

“But-”

She frowned and shook her head, fiercely. “No. No ‘but’s. You didn’t choose that, did you?”

He stared at her, trying to make her see. “But I did. I did choose it. I could have said no.”

“And why didn’t you?” she asked softly. He looked down at their hands, wondering how she could be willing to touch him, how she couldn’t see the blood that was on them.

“Because I was scared. I just felt so alone and I was so scared and I couldn’t remember anything other than that, and I wanted the pain to stop. And Snoke kept telling me if I listened, if I did what he said, everything would be alright. That I could be strong, powerful. That I could be something other than a pathetic wretch.”

He didn’t know when he’d started crying, but he definitely was, tears pouring down his cheeks. Even if she didn’t hate him for being a monster, she’d surely reject him for being so weak. He could almost hear Snoke chiding him for being pathetic, for not being strong enough.

But instead, he felt himself being wrapped in a warm hug. He should push her away – some part of him wanted to, howling that giving in to sentiment would only make him weaker still, and he would be left alone at the end as everyone abandoned him – but instead he found himself returning the embrace, clinging to her desperately.

“That wasn’t a choice at all, Ben. You’re not a monster.”

He pulled away a little to look down at her. “How can you be so sure?”

“I have faith in you.” She smiled up at him from where she nestled against his side. “Besides, I can’t see Kylo Ren being the sort of person who’d volunteer to be a maintenance platform.”

He couldn’t help but smile a little at that.

She reached up and wiped a tear from his cheek. “Don’t think a monster would cry either.”

“It makes me weak though. So does giving in to him. I should have said no.”

“How could you? You were just a child.” He wanted to argue with her, but he couldn’t. It was true that he had been a child. It was true that there had been no other real choice. But the fact that Snoke had offered him a choice and he had taken it…

“She’s right.” That was Rey’s voice. He looked up, startled. He’d forgotten there were other people in the room. “And you made a choice to leave, when you had the chance. When you realised you had a somewhere to go, a home, parents.”

There was a note of bitterness in her voice at that last part, and he wondered if she still believed her parents had meant to come back for her, and perhaps still might.

The ship shuddered as it came out of hyperspace.

“But I hurt you.”

“Not really.” She frowned, considering. “It was all pretty scary, and you weren’t very nice. But I wasn’t actually _hurt_.”

She was being extremely charitable, and he doubted she’d have described her captivity in such glowing terms when running into her rescuers.

“But I could have, if you hadn’t escaped. You’d have been brought before Snoke…”

“Then it’s just as well I did escape.” She grinned. “And you did help me there. Kind of.”

So she _had_ picked things up from his mind. Again, he wanted to argue. But what could he say? You could just tell someone who was adamant they hadn’t been hurt that you had in fact hurt them. Not when they’d been inside your head.

Silence. Finn fidgeted in his seat further along the couch, possibly worried he’d be expected to chime in with a glowing character reference when he’d rather not get involved or be reminded that he’d been part of the First Order too. Rey might give the impression of not being entirely comfortable in a confined space with other people, but Finn so clearly did not want to be here.

It wasn’t as if he could fault the man for it though – he didn’t feel he should be here either, but where would he run to?

There was another shift as the ship went back into hyperspace once more.

Rose was still nestled against his side. He should move her, but he can’t.

“What’s the other one?” she asked suddenly.

He looked down at her, confused.

“The other lightsaber,” she clarified.

He cringed, embarrassed to claim the haphazard collection of parts as his. Snoke had been cutting in his remarks, and when placed next to a proper lightsaber, it was all too easy to see why.

“It’s mine.”

She reached for it, curious, then stopped, before looking up at him with an unspoken question in her eyes. He nodded.

Picking it up, she turned it over, examining it. Even though he knew that she would surely not be dumb enough to hit the ignition switch while looking down it, it still made him nervous. Perhaps she noticed his racing heartbeat, as she quickly moved away from her close perusal of the vents.

“It’s cool,” she pronounced, with the air of an expert.

“Cool?” he queried, slightly confused.

“Yes, cool.”

He tried to protest this positive assessment. “But it’s not as well made as the other one.”

“Maybe, but it’s cooler. And that’s important.” She was smiling, he noticed.

Rey laughed. “She’s not wrong.”

There’s another shudder; they’re back in hyperspace again.

“Cool gets people killed,” muttered Finn, but with no real conviction. He sounded like he was just automatically repeating the words of one of his instructors.

“Well that’s just boring.”

He jumped; he hadn’t even heard his father come in. Neither had anyone else judging by the reactions. Rose dropped the lightsaber back on the table. Finn attempted to jerk up straight so suddenly he nearly fell over. Rey frantically reached for her staff for a moment before she remembered where she was.

Han looked at them a moment, slightly amused. “Just thought I’d say that was the last jump – we’re nearly there.”

Rose frowned in confusion. “Why did we make so many jumps. Are we leaking fuel?”

“Nah. Ben here reckons the First Order has figured out how to track people through lightspeed.”

“They can track us? Even through lightspeed?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure.” He hated how people were putting such faith in his wild suggestion. Of course he was being ridiculous, causing people to waste fuel on pointless manoeuvres. “They’ve done tests, and they must have been successful because Hux was smiling, and normally he never smiles unless someone is suffering.”

“No suggestion of how it works?”

He shook his head, watching her purse her lips in thought. “They must be using standard active tracking tech – the principle is still the same, even with a technological leap – but there’s an almost infinite number of possibilities available for where a ship might jump to.”

He considered this. “There’s probably an algorithm involved somehow.”

This seemed like a wild guess to him, trying to fill in the blanks with what he knew of Hux’s obsession with using technology whenever possible, but she nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes! That would work! It would take an insane amount of computing power, so I suppose at least it’d only be a problem when running from large star destroyers – I doubt a shuttle would manage without crashing in multiple senses of the word.”

She actually looked excited by the insane leap in technology displayed by a group of people trying to kill her. “And multiple hops would make it harder – more variables to consider. Especially taking into account all the different ships they’d need to track. And I’d have to imagine they’d need to be present to gather the co-ordinates the ship jumps at…”

Rey finally spoke up from her corner. “So where are we going?”

Yeah, she definitely didn’t like being cooped up.

“Not exactly,” Han replied. “The co-ordinated point to Crait.”

He’d never heard of it, and there was no flash of recognition on any of the others’ faces. Rose spoke for them all when she said, “I’ve never heard of that planet.”

His father grimaced a little. “Yeah, you wouldn’t. It’s an unmarked planet. The Rebellion used it as a base in its early days, but it was quickly abandoned in favour of way more suitable planets.”

“Why?” Finn asked, as Ben tried to remember if he’d heard the name in any of his parents’ war stories.

Han snorted. “Place is inhospitable and remote, which is great in theory. In practice it means you’re completely reliant on imported supplies and it’s shit for morale.”

He looked around, seeing the gloomy expressions everyone was wearing. “Ah, don’t worry about it. It’s not the best place in the galaxy, but I doubt we’re staying any longer than it’ll take for Leia to reach out to allies and send out scouts to find something better, which shouldn’t be hard. It’s not like we can afford to be fussy.”

Rose nodded. “There must be people out there who want to help. With the destruction of the Hosnian system, people will realise that they can’t just sit this out and hope for the best.”

“Or they will just surrender,” Finn retorted.

Rey glared at him, though there was no real heat in it. “You’re not very optimistic.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sorry. I’m not very good at that. The First Order strongly discourages optimism in anything other than their complete domination over the galaxy.”

Ben looked down, fiddling with the beacon. Finn was right. He couldn’t remember ever getting to be optimistic in anything. He’d striven to prove himself worthy of his master’s approval, and never felt close to achieving it. Because it had been a lie to keep him compliant.

He’d never been able to have any kind of hope. Perhaps now he could give it a try.

“I guess we’re going to Crait then.”

“That’s the spirit, kid!”

Was this what hope felt like? He could get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on Tumblr [here](http://sinistercinnamon.tumblr.com/).


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